Spanish company complains over lack of justice in Dominican legal system

posted on: Feb 9 2012 7:13 by The Reporter. Viewed 330 times.

Grupo Barceló, the Spanish owners of a chain of hotels in the Dominican Republic has publicly complained about the lack of legal certainty for foreign investors and asked President Leonel Fernández and the President of the Supreme Court of Justice, Mariano Germán to intervene.

This comes just two months after the British Ambassador in the Dominican Republic also complained about the judgements handed out to British investors by Dominican courts.

The latest revelation regards a Dominican court's judgement of five years in prison for senior executives of Grupo Barceló's Bavaro (Punta Cana) hotels, after a civil dispute regarding a company renting premises within the resort whose tenancy contract had expired and had made no further rental payments.

Grupo Barceló say the tenant initiated an embargo, which led to a lawsuit for theft from which were issued "provisional custody measures  and a ban on leaving the country", and ended with "a sentence of alleged aggravated robbery.”

The November ruling was appealed in the Court of appeal of San Pedro de Macoris, whose judges are Marcelina Hernández Japa (Presiding), José Glass Gutiérrez, Zamira Madrigal Santana, Virginia González Brea and Ramon Báez Rodríguez. The initial court ruling was made by interim judge Vicente Marte Jiménez, who replaced the incumbent Presiding judge for this hearing, along the judges Aristides Dalmiro Heredia Sena and Cindy Rosario Santana.

The Bávaro hoteliers explained that before the sentence, the hotel and the alleged accused had complained to the last President of the Supreme Court of Justice, Jorge Subero Isa, and the current Attorney-General of the Republic, Radhamés Jiménez Peña, regarding the investigation irregularities and the process, as well as multiple actions that have they have been the victim of, by way of pressure from the plaintiffs in order to extract a costly transaction.

"We regret making this record of repeated requests made by our company public, but we feel totally helpless before so much injustice, by the apparent lack of legal certainty, although we know that it is not widespread, but focused on specific sectors", states the public document.

The Spanish group has invested 250 million dollars in recent years in the renovation and reconstruction of these hotels.

Noting that Grupo Barceló is one of the pioneers in the development of tourism in Dominican Republic, and has contributed to the progress and the creation of thousands of jobs, the hotel group feels that the conviction and sentence against their executives is an unjustifiable outrage.

The Court's decision was appealed by the council of Barceló's lawyers and will be heard by a Court of appeal in San Pedro de Macoris, but the tourist consortium feels that by the way justice in this case has been handled so far, its executives have no certainty that the case will be handled with impartiality.

Grupo Barceló first opened up in the Dominican Republic in 1985 with the inauguration of Barceló Bávaro Beach Resort, the first Spanish owned resort in Punta Cana.

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