The board of Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIA) says it’s happy with the court verdict ordering insurance firm NAGICO to give the government-owned company an advance of US $33.2 million, on top of the $25 million already paid out. PJIA wanted a total advance of $72.6 million for damage plus $2.3 million for loss of profit in June, July and August.
NAGICO, on the other hand, maintained that real covered damage did not exceed $37 million, including profit loss, which in the worst-case scenario is $11.8 million of which only $5.9 million had supposedly been collectable due to being underinsured.
It’s important to remember that this was merely an injunction and the final settlement is still to be determined, possibly in a regular case on the merits if agreement still can’t be reached. What it could mean is that PJIA may look forward to more than double the amount received until now, allowing it to not only work on creating the temporary facility planned for November inside the terminal but start rebuilding the entire remaining complex sooner rather than later.
So, while the final chapter in this story has not yet been written, the ruling in part based on the “meet halfway” principle appears to have indicated some general ballpark figures that also other magistrates would be likely to follow in the future. In that sense, one can safely conclude that at least the financial gap between parties seems to have been considerably narrowed.
