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The Alfa Nero yacht. (CMC File Photo)
NEW YORK, CMC – A federal judge has ruled that the financial records of Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne and several other persons, including his wife, must be produced but with strict confidentiality conditions attached as the legal battle continues here regarding the sale of the megayacht, Alfa Nero.
Earlier this month, a United States court granted a motion temporarily stopping a subpoena to probe into the finances of Prime Minister Browne, his wife, Marie Browne, his son and several officials involved in the sale of the Alfa Nero.
But US District Judge Jesse M. Furman, Tuesday, sitting in the Southern District of New York, issued a memo endorsement lifting the stay on subpoenas for the financial documents of individuals connected to the case and ordered that the materials be disclosed under a protective order, limiting access to attorneys only
“Upon review of the parties’ letters, the Court concludes that the proper way to balance Applicant’s interest in avoiding unnecessary delay and Movants’ privacy interests is to lift the stay and require production subject to a protective order,” Judge Furman wrote in the order.
The documents will remain under an Attorneys-Eyes-Only designation, preventing disclosure beyond legal teams until further instructions from the court and should the court later decide to quash the subpoenas, any materials already disclosed must be destroyed.
The megayacht, abandoned by Andrey Guryev, a Russian businessman who founded a fertiliser company, is being sought by his daughter, Yulia Guryeva-Motlokhov, who claims she is the rightful owner.
The Antigua and Barbuda government has already indicated that it sold the yacht last year. But the attorneys for Guryeva-Motlokhov alleged in a March 11 filing in federal court that Browne’s administration has not released documents related to the US$40 million sale of the Alfa Nero.
The US court had first granted the subpoena order for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Clearing House Payments Company LLC to provide information regarding the sale and disbursement of any funds related to the sale.
But the Antigua and Barbuda government’s lawyers filed two motions over the last weekend to intervene in the proceedings and to vacate the section 1782 order issued by the court and to quash the subpoenas Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Clearing House Payments Company LLC. The motions were unopposed.
On Tuesday, the judge directed both parties to confer and submit a proposed protective order by April 25, 2025.
Earlier this month, Browne told a television programme that the sale was the best option available to the government when it was sold.
“We are the only small island state that had ended up with a sanctioned vessel and we don’t have the five million US dollars that is required annually to upkeep the vessel.
“In the United States, they have seized a number of Russian yachts and my understanding is that it is costing them tens of millions of dollars annually to upkeep these vessels. They can afford those payments,” Browne told television viewers.
