Bahamas seeks to wrest control of Baha Mar casino project from developer

The Chinese contractor building the stalled $3.5b Baha Mar resort casino in the Bahamas is seeking the dismissal of the Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings filed by the project’s developer last month.

On Monday, China’s state-owned China Construction America (CCA) told a Delaware bankruptcy judge that it would file a motion to dismiss the bankruptcy proceedings filed last month by developer Baha Mar Ltd. The developer has also sued CCA over its alleged failure to meet construction timelines.

Late last week, Bahamas Prime Minister Perry Christie (pictured) announced that his administration was filing a winding-up petition in the country’s Supreme Court to wrest control over the project from the developer. In a nationally televised address, Christie justified the move by saying that the resort’s completion was “a matter of the utmost national importance.”

Christie said the winding-up proceedings were “designed to work in very similar terms as a Chapter 11 but with the stark difference that they will be controlled by provisional liquidators under the supervision of the Bahamian courts,” rather than by Baha Mar Ltd.