Casino developer Sarkis Izmirlian has scored a procedural victory in his $2.25b fraud lawsuit against the Chinese state-run firm that built the Baha Mar resort casino in the Bahamas.

On Friday, the Bahamas Tribune reported that the New York State Supreme Court had rejected a bid by China Construction America (CCA) to dismiss Izmirlian’s fraud suit. The publicity-averse CCA had asked the New York court to send the case to arbitration, which would have allowed CCA to keep the proceedings out of the public domain.

CCA will now have until February 13, 2019 to file a formal defense against Izmirlian’s allegations of fraud. The parties are scheduled to be back in court on February 27.

In December 2017, Izmirlian’s BML Properties filed suit against CCA, the American subsidiary of China’s state-owned China State Construction Engineering Corp. Izmirlian accused CCA of willfully misleading him regarding its inability to complete the $4.2b Baha Mar resort on schedule.