PHILIPSBURG--Funtime NV, doing business as Rouge Et Noir Casino, won a court case against the government of St. Maarten after attorneys for government could not establish legal basis for the seizure of bingo balls from the casino by Economic Affairs Department inspectors in July and August 2010.
The court ordered government to return the confiscated balls within seven days or pay US $1,000 per day, every day the balls are not in the possession of the casino. If government cannot produce the bingo balls, it could face penalties of up to US $200,000.
The court also awarded damages to Funtime that have to be established in a separate hearing. According to Funtime, however, the casino incurred damages of US $64, 481 as a direct loss of the sale of bingo games, an estimated US $65, 548 in losses due to the departure of customers to other casinos, and US $13,384 as revenue lost at the slot machines.
Inspectors confiscated balls from Tropicana, Coliseum, Rouge et Noir and Hollywood casinos on July 29, 2010. They said at that time that none of the confiscated balls had any sort of indicators on them: "no codes ? nothing that they can show to the public that they are in compliance with international measuring requirements." To meet requirements, the ping-pong-size balls must weigh no less than 2.3 grams and no more than three grams. After the balls were weighed, the casinos were all found to have balls weighing less than 2.3 grams.
Hollywood and Rouge et Noir casinos challenged the legal basis on which they are bound by the technical specifications for bingo balls, and the legal authority on which the bingo balls were seized. In a letter to the Executive Council dated August 18, the casino owners, through their attorney Jelmer Snow, also enquired about the legal status of the so-called technical specifications, and when and how these had been made public.
The letter to government was submitted in response to a letter dated August 13 from Ministry of Economic Affairs TEZVT Acting Secretary General Miguel DeWeever to Hollywood Casino. DeWeever had informed the casino management that the balls did not meet the "technical specifications as established by the Metrology Service. "In accordance with the Federal Ordinance of 1956 relating to weights and measures, the bingo balls were seized as they do not meet current specification requirements," he said in his letter.
The legal basis government clung to did not hold up in court, however, as the articles used from the Federal Ordinance of 1956 to justify the action could not be applied to bingo balls. The government's argument that Funtime could not claim losses because the balls could not be used anyway was also rejected by the judge. Government could not prove that Funtime could be bound by "policies", and not specific legislation or explicit legal provision that dealt with material issues as bingo balls.
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