MARITIME attorney Nyree Alfonso has been cleared of all wrongdoing in the acquisition of the MV Superfast Galicia to service the inter-island seabridge over a decade ago.
In 2018, the Port Authority and the Attorney General filed a claim for breach of fiduciary duty against Alfonso, Intercontinental Shipping Ltd (ICSL), and its representative, John Powell.
The lawsuit alleged between December 2013 and July 2014, the authority retained Alfonso to help procure a new vessel for the inter-island ferry service.
It claimed Alfonso breached her fiduciary duty as an attorney for the authority, as she was associated with the company and assisted in its successful tender in exchange for financial gain. The authority alleged that while Alfonso was working for the port, she appointed Intercontinental Shipping Ltd, as her agent to tender for the contract. Intercontinental, the agents for the Superfast Galicia, won the bid.
The claim further alleged Alfonso benefited financially from the $148 million paid to Intercontinental for the Galicia.
In a ruling on Tuesday, Justice Joan Charles held that the Port Authority had not established that Alfonso acted in breach of her fiduciary duty to win a tender and the Port Authority, with full knowledge, approved ICSL.
She also held that neither Intercontinental nor Powell acted as Alfonso’s agents or with her to “derive a pecuniary benefit.
“The claimants had full knowledge of all information relating to the charter of the MVSG…that the first defendant was not involved in the tender and that the second defendant was acting independently.
“The claimants, with full knowledge of all the facts, entered into a charter party with the second defendant as disponent owner of the MVSG and Astralship as broker for the said vessel.
“I, therefore, dismiss the claimants’ case and give judgment for the defendants,” she ruled.
Details of the claim against Alfonso were that she reviewed the case for terminating the authority’s arrangements for the Government Shipping Service with the owners of the MV Warrior Spirit and identified the MV Superfast Galicia as the preferred replacement.
It also pleaded that the only reason Astralship was excluded from the tender process as the broker was to permit Alfonso, ICSL and Powell to tender. The judge said this claim was “surprising” since the Port Authority pleaded that the broker was excluded from the tender process, yet the charter party for the Galicia showed it was the ship’s broker.
“This averment was shown to be completely inaccurate; this aspect of the claimants’ case was thereby undermined,” the judge said.
The lawsuit filed against the three sought damages for an alleged breach of fiduciary duty by Alfonso while she was working for the Port Authority as an adviser to help them source a vessel to replace the Warrior Spirit on the inter-island sea bridge.
She denied that ICSL or Powell ever acted as her agent in the authority’s tendering process to find a suitable cargo vessel for the inter-island route during the time the Warrio
