US courts have ordered four cruise lines to pay nearly $450 million for using the port of Havana, which was nationalized by Cuban authorities in 1960.
The ruling, delivered by a Florida federal judge on Friday, ordered cruise lines Carnival, MSCSA, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian to pay $109 million each, plus court costs, to a US company, Havana Docks.
The latter was deprived, without compensation, of its rights to operate the port after Castro’s revolution on the Caribbean island.
Judge Beth Bloom said that the four companies, whose lines stop in Cuba, “made large profits, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars each, from their illegal activities” in this port.
The United States had imposed an economic embargo on the island since 1962, but Democratic President Barack Obama eased it and allowed cruise passengers to stop over in Cuba in 2016, a decision that was then overturned by his Republican successor, Donald Trump.
France Press agency
However, the ruling is not based on this prohibition, but on parts of the 1996 law that remained a dead letter until then.
At the time, the US Congress wanted to discourage potential investors in Cuba by allowing any American whose property had been confiscated by Fidel Castro’s regime to sue those who profit from its use.
However, successive US presidents prevented the application of this measure until Donald Trump decided in 2019 to allow it to enter into force.
It followed a series of legal actions and was the first to succeed with regard to cruise passengers. In March, Judge Bloom found the four companies guilty of “traffic” and “prohibited tourism” based on that law.
On Friday, it determined the amount of compensation resulting from the ruling.
“Given the law’s deterrent purpose and the nature of the crime, a penalty of just over $100 million per defendant is certainly reasonable,” she said.
His decision is subject to appeal, but it could have major repercussions for the Cuban economy, which is going through its worst crisis since the 1990s.
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