Cabinet Office to comply with casino documents disclosure
The Cabinet Office is expected to soon comply with an order from Information Commissioner Gitanjali Gutierrez and release additional records about a rejected multimillion-dollar casino deal.
Ms Gutierrez said yesterday the public authority had informed her office of its intention to disclose the documents and she expected it to do so shortly.
The Information Commissioner set a February 1 deadline for the release of the records to The Royal Gazette, which requested them under public access to information more than six years ago, but they have not yet been disclosed.
As reported last month, Ms Gutierrez concluded it was in the public interest for certain records to see the light of day, although she found the Cabinet Office was right to withhold others, either in part or in whole.
The local company at the heart of the deal, MM&I, “vehemently” objected to disclosure, according to her decisions.
The firm and Banyan Gaming, its partner company in Florida, stood to potentially net tens of millions of dollars a year if given a contract to provide a cashless gaming network management system for casinos in Bermuda.
A special report by The Royal Gazette in October 2017 revealed the deals of a memorandum of understanding between MM&I and the former One Bermuda Alliance Government, which proposed a ten-year contract for MM&I, with the option to renew for another ten years.
It would have given the company 40 per cent of Bermuda’s gross gaming revenue from electronic gaming devices and an 8 per cent transaction fee on the purchase of chips for use at dealer-operated tables.
With Bermuda’s annual revenue from casinos projected to be between $84 million and $146 million, according a 2010 government-commissioned report, and electronic gaming expected to account for about three-quarters of that, the rewards for MM&I and its US partner company Banyan were likely to be substantial.
The 2013 MOU was signed by the late Shawn Crockwell, who was tourism minister, and Mark Pettingill, then the Attorney-General, both lawyers.
Mr Crockwell later tabled legislation to legalise casino gaming, which was passed by the House of Assembly.
The pair went on to represent MM&I — owned by Bermudians John Tartaglia and Michael Moniz — after they left government and went into private practice together.
Michael Fahy, Mr Crockwell’s successor, terminated the agreement, and the Bermuda Gaming Commission later issued a warning about individuals associated with Banyan who had previously surrendered gaming licences in the United States.
The Royal Gazette asked the former Ministry of Economic Development and Tourism, then responsible for casinos, for records about the cashless gaming agreement under public access to information in September 2017.
Some records were released in response, but others were withheld.
In her decisions, the Information Commissioner disagreed with the Cabinet Office’s claim that three records could not be disclosed because they were “shared in confidence”.
She found that another Pati exemption, concerning ministerial responsibility, did not apply to a fourth document and it should also be released.
The Cabinet Office, MM&I, the Gazette, and any person aggrieved by Ms Gutierrez’s decisions in the matter have the right to seek and apply for judicial review.
They have six months from the date the decisions were issued — December 14, 2023 — to apply to the Supreme Court.
The Cabinet Office said in a statement yesterday that it was not responsible for the delay in disclosing the records.
Nicholas Howard, lawyer for the ICO, said: “To date, the commissioner has not sought to enforce the order due to potential judicial review applications from entities other than the Cabinet Office.”
He added that no notice of a judicial review application had been received and the Cabinet Office had indicated it would comply with the order after February 29.
Ms Gutierrez said that after that date she would “cease forbearance” in enforcing the decisions and the accompanying order.
She said she expected the Cabinet Office to “comply with the requirements of the order shortly thereafter” unless another entity applied for leave to seek judicial review and her order was stayed by the court.
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