Court rules in favour of Government in Alegria water rights case | SOUALIGA NEWSDAY

SINT MAARTEN (GREAT BAY, (DCOMM) – In a case of water rights between the Alegria Real Estate N.V. and the Government of Sint Maarten, the Judge on April 19, 2021, considered all the claims made by Alegria to be without merit and rejected their request to have the decision to deny the water rights annulled. On October 6th, 2020 the Minister of Public Housing, Environment, Spatial Development, and Infrastructure (Ministry of VROMI) Egbert Doran, denied the request made by Algeria Real Estate N.V. for water rights. The amount of water rights requested was more than 13,000 m2. Alegria challenged this refusal of the requested water rights by filing an objection by the administrative Judge. According to Alegria, a valid and binding agreement was entered into based on the confirmations made by the former attorney representing the Ministry of VROMI and the Secretary General of VROMI. Alegria also claimed, among other things, that they were being discriminated against in the denial of the requested water rights. The Judge as mentioned earlier, rejected Alegria’s request to have the decision to deny the water rights annulled. The Judge referred to the relevant laws and jurisprudence that reiterate that Alegria should not have taken the position that they had a reasonable expectation to get the water rights because neither the former attorney representing Alegria, or the Secretary General of the Ministry of VROMI were authorized to make such commitments on behalf of the Ministry of VROMI or country Sint Maarten. As the decision to refuse the requested water rights was properly motivated, the Judge did not find any faults in said refusal to justify the claims of Alegria. As there are other legal matters related to the various Alegria cases still ongoing, the Minister of VROMI cannot divulge any additional information other than what the Court has ruled in connection with the court case. The Minister of VROMI would like to conclude by stating that he is very pleased with the outcome of the administrative decision.