Following the revelation that Rosewood filed a motion to sever ties with Baha Mar, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Immigration Fred Mitchell suggested yesterday there is no need to worry.

“This is first and foremost a legal issue,” Mitchell said in an interview with The Nassau Guardian.

“And I think people have raised it to a level that has caused a level of anxiety, which is simply not warranted.

“We should allow the legal measures to play out and at the end of the day, I think it is all going to be resolved to the satisfaction of everybody.”

Claiming that Baha Mar “induced” it to enter into an agreement on the premise that it held the title to the Cable Beach property when it in fact did not, Rosewood filed a motion in a Delaware Court seeking to end its relationship with Baha Mar. In its motion, Rosewood said Baha Mar has “incurred numerous defaults under the various Rosewood hotel agreements, many of which are incurable”, including Baha Mar’s failure to pay key hotel staff and its inability to secure funding.

It categorized Baha Mar’s “failure to own the land” as a violation of “a core precept of the Rosewood hotel agreements.”

In the U.S. court document filed on Wednesday, Rosewood also said its brand is “being tarnished” daily due to controversy surrounding Baha Mar.

Adding to that, Rosewood said it is also losing money daily and as a result “is now suffering, and will suffer additional irreparable harm if it is not permitted to terminate the Rosewood Hotel Agreements and be relieved of its association with Baha Mar”.

The Rosewood hotel includes approximately 99 guest rooms and suites and up to 92 residential units to be sold to purchasers.

“In terms of the specific things with regard to Rosewood, they would have their own reasons for taking the decisions they did,” Mitchell said.

“But in any legal maneuver of this kind, the result would be that those things that have been changed, might be revisited to the benefit of the country and to the benefit of the enterprise.

“So it’s simply important, in my view, for people to keep calm and be rational and wait for the result of the court processes.”

Mitchell said he believes the problem will be solved in the long term despite the current state.

“My view is that when 30 years have passed, 30 years from now, people will look back at this and they probably won’t remember any of the details of it,” he said.

“This only seems important to us in the short term.

“In the medium to the long term, the matter is going to be resolved.

“And I believe it will be resolved to the satisfaction of all the Bahamian people.”

When asked if he is afraid of the state that Baha Mar is in, Mitchell said, “Bahamians have an expression, ‘I ain’t never scared’.”

Rosewood is the first brand to seek to terminate its agreement with the development.

The other brands involved in the mega resort aside from the central Baha Mar Casino & Hotel include the Grand Hyatt and SLS Lux.

Baha Mar filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on June 29 in the United States, bringing the project to a standstill. On July 22, Supreme Court Justice Ian Winder rejected Baha Mar’s application seeking approval for recognition of the Chapter 11 filing in The Bahamas.

The government is seeking the appointment of provisional liquidators to manage Baha Mar’s affairs with a view to getting the stalled project completed and operational. The winding up proceedings continue today.