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May 3, 2019 T: 582-7800 | F: 582-7044 www.arubatoday.com
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Page 13
Under Trump change, Cuba business partners can now be sued By GISELA SALOMON and MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN MIAMI (AP) — In 1958, José Ramón López's father owned Cuba's main airport, its national airline and three small hotels. Conchita Beltrán's family had about 2,160 acres (874 hectares) of sugar and tobacco fields. And the families of Mickael Behn and Javier García Bengochea had docks in Havana and Santiago de Cuba. All properties were taken in Cuba's socialist revolution. The dispossessed families later moved to the United States and abandoned hope of compensation as Cuba and the U.S. severed relations and fought during decades of the Cold War. But on Thursday, Behn and Garcia Bengochea filed what were believed to be
the first lawsuits against European and American companies doing business on confiscated properties in Cuba — thanks to the Trump administration's decision to activate a provision of the U.S. embargo on the island. Known as Title III of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, the section allows Americans, and Cubans who later became Americans, to sue almost any company deemed to be “trafficking” in property confiscated by Cuba’s government. Every president since the law’s passage has suspended Title III because of objections from U.S. allies doing business in Cuba and because of the potential effect on future negotiated settlements between the U.S. and Cuba. Continued on Page 4
In this Sept. 1, 2014 file photo, people put their luggage in a private taxi as they arrive from the U.S. to the Jose Marti International Airport in Havana, Cuba. Associated Press