Clarence Derby
PHILIPSBURG--Clarence Derby (75), long-time associate of Iranian-American billionaire Hushang Ansary, has been ordered by the Court of First Instance to pay back almost NAf. 3.85 million that he earned as a “ghost employee” of Curaçao-based insurance company Ennia.
In its verdict last Tuesday, the court ruled that Derby had been wrongfully included on Ennia’s payroll between 2008 and 2018, receiving a net monthly salary as high as US $9,600 and another NAf. 17,000 per year in reimbursed expenses. Payslips listed him as one of Ennia’s managing directors, but Derby was not an employee at all, the court ruled.
These payments were in addition to the $5,300 he earned each month as an employee of SunResorts, a company owned by Ennia’s investment arm since the late 2000s.
The civil lawsuit against Derby is part of the high-profile financial mismanagement scandal surrounding Ennia’s former owner Ansary.
Ansary used Ennia as a personal ATM machine, withdrawing large amounts of assets for things unrelated to the insurance company, such as donations to his private causes, the cost of private jets and salaries to fictitious staff like Derby.
In September 2023, the Joint Court of Justice found Ansary liable to the tune of almost $143 million for financial wrongdoing at Ennia. The Joint Court’s provisional verdict was in the appeal of the Court of First Instance’s verdict of November 2021, which found Ansary, his daughter Nina, and (former) directors, supervisory directors and shareholders liable for more than NAf. 1 billion.
Derby – who was also a member of the supervisory board of Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIA) between 2009 and 2014 – argued during the civil case that he had been filling three positions at the same time. He said two of these were at SunResorts and another at The Towers at Mullet Bay, a now-closed apartment complex owned by Ansary.
According to the verdict, he argued that it was Ansary’s decision to pay him for these functions partly from Ennia’s pocket, and that it was not unusual in Ennia’s group of companies to be paid by Ennia but be employed at another firm.
However, the court ruled that Derby could not prove that he had two distinct positions at SunResorts, or that these were to be paid individually.
Derby said he was responsible for reconstruction work at The Towers after Hurricane Irma, but the court dismissed this argument too.
“Derby has not explained, or at least insufficiently explained, what other work he performed for The Towers from 2008 until Hurricane Irma,” it was stated in the verdict. “Furthermore, Ennia has rightly argued that if Derby performed work for The Towers, The Towers, being a separate entity, should have also paid his salary and not Ennia.”
As for Ennia, Derby said he had to arrange various meetings in St. Maarten for the company.
However, the court ruled that a single e-mail exchange from 2016 is not enough to prove this was a recurring task. “But even if it is true, a monthly fee of $9,600 for arranging meetings is disproportionate to say the least,” the court said.
In a separate case, the Court of First Instance in November 2023 ordered SunResorts to give Derby roughly $34,500 in unpaid salary. Derby, who had been working for the company since 1973, had stopped being paid in January 2023 after being put on non-active status. The court dissolved the labour contract in June 2023.
