“In a consequential ruling Monday night, a Miami federal judge said four major cruise lines with South Florida ties — Carnival, Norwegian, Royal Caribbean and MSC Cruises — engaged in “prohibited tourism” and “trafficking activities” by carrying passengers to Cuba and profiting from the use of Havana port facilities confiscated by the Fidel Castro-led government, the first decision of its kind that could affect similar lawsuits.
“By using the Terminal and one of its piers in various ways, Carnival, MSC SA, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian committed trafficking acts,” U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom concluded.
According to court records previously reviewed by the Herald, the companies earned at least $1.1 billion in revenue and paid $138 million to Cuban government entities.
The companies’ cruises to Cuba “constituted tourist activities and not proper people-to-people activities, paying millions of dollars to the Cuban Government to engage in impermissible travel,” the judge wrote.
“The fact that (the Treasury Department, under Obama) promulgated licenses for traveling to Cuba, and Executive Branch officials, including the President (Obama), encouraged Defendants to do so, does not automatically immunize Defendants from liability if they engaged in statutorily prohibited tourism,” she wrote.
Read the entire fascinating thing here.
Here at Babalu blog we often highlighted what seemed to us (though we’re not “legal experts”) the preposterous nature of the “educational” Cuba travel the Obama administration sanctioned.
And applauded Trump’s enforcement of U.S. law. See here.
Internationally-acclaimed scholar and professor Emeritus Carlos Eire has also commented brilliantly on this development..
