A US federal court ordered four cruise companies to pay nearly $440 million dollars as part of several lawsuits filed more than three years ago, in which they accuse the shipping companies of doing business with expropriated assets in Cuba after the Cuban revolution in 1959, in this case docks.
The parent companies of Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian, based in Miami, and MSC, were sued by US citizens under the so-called Title III of the Helms-Burton Act seeking compensation for the usufruct of properties that belonged to their families on the island.
“An award of just over $100 million per defendant is certainly reasonable,” the Miami judge said in her ruling, dated December 30.
It added that “a lesser award, as defendants suggest, would not effectively serve a deterrent purpose, as a lesser award could possibly be seen simply as a cost of doing business.”
Title III had remained without effect since the promulgation of the Helms-Burton or “Freedom” law in 1996 until then-President Donald Trump activated it in May 2019 as part of his strong-arm policy towards Cuba.
The norm empowers US citizens to sue in US courts any national or foreign company that benefits from properties in Cuba that belonged to them or their families and were confiscated after 1959.
In the case of cruise ships, which are expected to appeal the ruling, it refers to the docks in the Havana port that belonged to the firm Havana Docks Corporation.
At least 72 Cuban-Americans have filed lawsuits in US courts seeking compensation for the use of expropriated property in Cuba.
These are mainly hotels, mostly from European chains, especially Spanish ones, or airlines that use the José Martí International Airport, which operate or have operated in nationalized properties.
You may also be interested in:
–U.S. Embassy in Cuba restarts interviews for immigrant visas
–Miami sets sail for the first cruise to Cuba in 50 years
–Cuba will allow Cubans to travel on cruise ships to and from the US starting in May