THE NASSAU GUARDIAN WARNS MICHAEL PINTARD
The following is the editorial of the Nassau Guardian dated March 2026 on the decision by the arbitrators in the case against the Grand Bahama Port Authority:
We believe those who claim that the February 27 ruling of the tribunal that overheard the arbitration between the Government of The Bahamas and the Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA) changed nothing are not fully appreciating what has actually occurred.
When Prime Minister Philip Davis stood in the House of Assembly on Wednesday and declared that he intends to “break” the old order in Freeport, we believe he was making a promise that he now has the legal instruments to back up.
After the ruling was made public on Tuesday, the Grand Bahama Chamber of Commerce concluded that the outcome “effectively returns the parties to the status quo”.
The GBPA’s own press release framed it as a stabilizing vindication.
The Free National Movement (FNM) called it a failure on the part of the government.
FNM Leader Michael Pintard labelled the tribunal’s firm dismissal of the GBPA’s counterclaims as “blah, blah, blah”.
That is not a serious response in the aftermath of a very serious decision from someone who wants to lead this nation.
We believe all of these assessments are deeply mistaken.
In the case of the GBPA and the FNM, their words appear to be less frank analysis than a coping mechanism for a difficult loss.
Before this ruling, the GBPA claimed with considerable force that it held effective authority over the daily governance of Freeport.
In its submissions to the tribunal, it controlled business licensing for non-Bahamians, immigration, customs, utilities, land purchases, and environmental approvals within the Port Area.
According to the prime minister, it arrived at arbitration with a billion-dollar counterclaim and the audacity to argue that the elected government of an independent Bahamas had no meaningful place in the affairs of one of its own major cities.
Seven of those eight counterclaims were rejected in their entirety.
That is not the status quo.
The Hawksbill Creek Agreement was born in 1955, 18 years before Bahamian independence.
The latitude the Port Authority enjoyed in that era reflected a colonial world in which no properly elected representative government existed to check private interests on Bahamian soil.
What the GBPA attempted was to have the tribunal endorse that pre-independence conception of its authority.
The tribunal was not persuaded.
It found that the annual review mechanism for the government to determine what the GBPA could owe is active.
And it said it is prepared to determine what is owed for prior years.
The ruling has also established beyond legal dispute the government’s authority to govern and regulate within the Port Area across every domain the GBPA contested.
Yes, the $357 million claim was dismissed.
The government failed to collect under one specific theory while retaining the right to pursue the same underlying liability through another mechanism.
The prime minister was unambiguous about what comes next regarding his administration’s position on the GBPA and the two families that control it.
“We will break that order,” he told the House.
“We will replace it with one in which Bahamian sovereignty is real in Freeport, in which self-determination is a lived reality for the people who call that island home.
“Today, the record of an independent tribunal stands alongside the record of this House. Together they say that the Government of The Bahamas had the right to act, that we were right to challenge an unfair status quo, and that the future of Freeport and Grand Bahama must be written with the Bahamian people at the center.
“Sir Lynden spoke of an order that would bend or break. Today…it has bent. It has bent toward justice. It has bent toward the Bahamian people. It has bent toward the right of Freeport to move forward under laws made in this Chamber. And it will not bend back.’’
The prime minister is clearly in election mode.
But he is correct in that this is historic – not because of the political theater surrounding it, but because of what the ruling actually says and what it now permits.
The opposition argued the matter should have been handled through negotiation.
We are past that.
A legal reckoning has occurred.
The tribunal’s findings will likely shape every future negotiation, every licensing decision, every utility dispute, and every investment conversation in Freeport for the remaining life of the Hawksbill Creek Agreement.
That is not what the status quo looks like.
We believe this may be the beginning of the end of it.