Baha Mar and Morgans Management are remaining tight-lipped over the status of their relationship days after the date suggested in court documents for Morgans to formally exit its hotel management agreement (HMA) with the mega-resort.
In a May 8 court filing, Christina Hassan, senior vice president and associate general counsel of Morgans Hotel Group Management (Morgans Management), said the company had notified Baha Mar on April 25 of the official termination of its HMA with Baha Mar, but offered to stay on in The Bahamas for a further 30-day period "to ease Baha Mar's transition process in finding a new operator for the hotel".
That 30-day period would have expired this past Saturday, May 25.
Emails sent to both Robert Sands, senior vice president of administration and external affairs for Baha Mar, and Jennifer Foley, public relations director for Morgans Hotel Group, over the course of the past several days seeking comment on the matter went unacknowledged by either party.
Morgans had been one of three hotel management companies that signed on with Baha Mar in 2011 to operate one of its hotels, set to officially come on stream in December 2014, under its Mondrian brand.
The crux of the disagreement leading to the apparent termination of the HMA in April was Baha Mar's failure to provide a non-disturbance agreement (NDA) to Morgans from its lenders, which would have protected Morgans' interests in the case of a default on the multibillion-dollar loan by Baha Mar from the Export-Import Bank of China.
When Baha Mar did ultimately concede in March of this year that it would not be able to obtain the NDA, Morgans terminated the agreement. The two sides are now set to meet in court again in June over Morgans' attempt to gain an injunction against Deutsche Bank distributing $10 million to Baha Mar, which it claims the resort development is no longer entitled to.
Baha Mar's alleged wrongful attempt to gain access to those funds days prior to the effective termination of the two sides' HMA has been highlighted by Morgans as a further "incurable" rupture in their business relationship.
Notwithstanding these disputes, Baha Mar President Tom Dunlap wrote to staff in early May, weeks before the "transitional period" agreed to by Morgans was to end, telling them that Baha Mar was "working towards a resolution" with the hotel company.
He noted that Morgans staff, such as General Manager Cate Farmer, were "still at their stations as usual". This would have fitted with Morgans' statement in court filings regarding how it would stay on only until May 25 to "ease" the process of finding a new partner.
What remains unclear at this stage is whether Baha Mar ultimately determined it would consider pushing back the opening date in order to accommodate Morgans and help to salvage the partnership.
In the same court filing of May 8, Hassan revealed that Morgans had, subsequent to notifying Baha Mar of the termination of the HMA on April 25, written to the resort on April 30 proposing that a more "reasonable date" for the opening of the resort would be April 2015, not December 2014.
Hassan said no response had been received to that letter by May 8, and in subsequent public statements, Sands has said the resort is still on track for the original opening deadline.
However, a growing number of stakeholders have speculated that meeting this deadline is looking increasingly unlikely given the current status of the development, meaning it may increasingly be in the interests of both sides to postpone the opening.

Bank of The Bahamas Limited (BOB) is supporting the country's culinary competitiveness in the upcoming Taste of the Caribbean competition, providing pre-loaded cash cards for members of the 2014 National Culinary Team to use while abroad to compete.
The chefs, bartender and ice carver have all been given an illustrated prepaid BOB card.
"BOB is pleased to provide our Visa prepaid card as the official travel card of our gold medal winning culinary team to the Taste of the Caribbean competition," said Vaughn Delaney, deputy managing director, BOB.
"We are very proud of the team's outstanding representation of The Bahamas in the culinary arts to date. They are among the greatest ambassadors for our country. We believe that they will benefit from the flexibility and convenience of our Visa prepaid card while traveling and competing, and we hope that our sponsorship will assist them to yet another victory for The Bahamas."
"We are most pleased to have the team use the BOB prepaid card during this competition," said Charlotte Knowles Thompson, executive administrator with the Bahamas Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA).
The BHTA, along with industry partners such as the Ministry of Tourism, is facilitating the team's ability to compete at the Taste of the Caribbean competition.
"As team administrator I have to ensure we adhere to a budget. This is the perfect device to use for purchasing provisions for the competition within our spending limit," said Thompson.
The team will travel to Miami on June 28, 2014 to compete against just under a dozen Caribbean nations, in what has come to be known as one of the most prestigious culinary, cocktail and ice sculpting competitions in the region.
Last year the Bahamian team brought home 13 medals, winning the highest number of medals in the competition: eight gold, three silver and two bronze medals. In addition, the 2013 team won the coveted Tony Mack Spirit of Competition Award, which is awarded to the team that displays the highest level of team spirit throughout the competition.
"We are very excited about this year's competition. Bahamian cuisine is part of our culture; the food and the beverage cocktails that we consider indigenous to The Bahamas are as rich and diverse as our history," said Suzanne Pattusch, executive vice president of the BHTA.
"As we seek to showcase that which makes our country unique in an increasingly competitive tourism industry, we can look to our culinary and cocktail arts as being one of the best examples of this country's inherent talent and distinction. We are pleased to have Bank of The Bahamas Limited cross-pollinate their support, from prepaid cards to cuisine."

Queen's College (Q.C) student Prachi Kondapuram, 11, is among 218 spellers hoping to make it past the preliminaries and into the semi-finals of the 2014 Scripps National Spelling Bee to give herself an opportunity to take to the stage and battle it out for the coveted title of champion of the 87th annual Scripps National Spelling Bee.
The bee got underway today at 8 a.m. with competition through Thursday at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland. Kondapuram, the winner of the 17th annual Bahamas National Spelling Bee, competes today in the preliminaries test, which is the first of three distinct segments of the competition that includes the semi-finals and championship finals.
Kondapuram is known as Speller Number Eight among the competitors from the 50 United States, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Department of Defense Schools in Europe, Canada, China, Ghana, Jamaica, Japan and South Korea.
Prior to traveling to Washington, Kondapuram had said she hoped to get past the written rounds and into the televised speaking rounds. ESPN will broadcast the Championship Finals from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Thursday, May 29.
Kondapuram was accompanied to the bee by The Bahamas' second place finisher, Donovan Butler from Xavier's Lower School, and third place winner, Franquel Hagan from Hugh Campbell Primary School in Grand Bahama.
In the history of the bee there have been two winners from the Caribbean claiming the title -- Puerto Rico's Hugh Tosteson in 1975, with the correct spelling of incisor, and Jamaica's Jody-Anne Maxwell in 1998, who correctly spelled chiaroscurist.
The road to the Scripps Spelling Bee began with more than 11 million students participating in classrooms, schools and locally-sponsored bees. This year's group of competitors is 51 percent girls and 49 percent boys. Kondapuram will be going up against a field that has 13 semifinalists who have returned from last year. Two spellers, Vanya Shivashankar and Ashwin Veeramani, have siblings who have previously won the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Hussain Godhrawala of Barnwell, South Carolina, is the youngest speller in the competition at age eight. The spellers range in age from eight to 15 years old, but more than 86 percent are between the ages of 12 and 14 and among the field, 138 spellers speak more than one language.
The National Spelling Bee started in 1925 with nine contestants. The E.W. Scripps Company took ownership in 1941 and, after not holding the competition for three years during World War II, has managed the bee continuously since 1946. This year marks the 70th year that Scripps has operated the National Spelling Bee.

Competition schedule on ESPN
Round two (preliminaries)
Wednesday, May 28 -- 8 a.m. - 11:45 a.m. EDT
Round three (preliminaries)
Wednesday, May 28 -- 1:15 p.m. - 4:45 p.m. EDT
The announcement of semifinalists will immediately follow the conclusion of round three and will be broadcast live on ESPN3.
Semifinals
Thursday, May 29 -- 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. EDT
The announcement of championship finalists will immediately follow the conclusion of round six and will be broadcast live on ESPN2.
Championship finals
Thursday, May 29 -- 8 p.m. - 10 p.m. EDT

Wednesday May 28, 2014 Gas Prices.

For prices today on gas check out BPSU, AutoServ, Texaco, Esso and Shell service stations.

Bahamas Public Service Station's On The Go Station (Wulff Road) NEW WEEKEND HOURS: Effective May 24, 2014 the station will close Saturday's at 10:00pm and reopen Monday's at 6:00am.

Check out Bahamas Public Service Station's On The Go Station (Wulff Road) with their special ting's tuff deal and prices for their on The Go Rewards Card members. To become a Rewards Card member visit their Wulff Road location. Also check out AutoServe on Wulff and Marathon Roads(Shell) $5.40

BPSU On the Go Service Station-Regular Price: $4.98

On The Go Rewards Card price: $4.73

Tings Tuff Discount (12-5:30am, available to everyone): $4.73

Diesel: $5.26

Shell - Regular price $5.39.

**Rubis** - Regular price $5.37.

Esso - Regular Price $5.39.