• 3 min de lectura
• 3 min de lectura
Frank Del Rio's claim that he wasn't paid all the consulting fees he believed he was due after stepping down as CEO of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and that this involved fraud and conspiracy was dismissed by a Miami court.
The decision applies to his complaint against the company and former directors Russell Galbut, Harry Curtis, Mary Landry and Stella Davis.
Judge Mavel Ruiz of the 11th Judicial Circuit Court in Miami granted the defendants' motion to dismiss, with prejudice, meaning Del Rio can't file another lawsuit with the same claims.
He is, however, allowed to appeal and Del Rio plans to do so, according to his attorney, Sergio Pagliery of Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P.
An NCLH spokesperson said the company had no comment.
In his original complaint, Del Rio said he was induced to take early retirement from NCLH, in part to save compensation expenses, and that the directors never intended to honor an oral agreement for a full 4.5 years of paid consulting for $18m. He alleged fraud, breach of contract and that the defendants conspired to conceal that he wouldn't be paid beyond the first 2.5 years.
When Del Rio got a written agreement for only 2.5 years and $10m, he said he was told it was because NCLH could not present the $18m to shareholders due to say-on-pay vote failures between 2020 and 2023 at a time when the business was recovering from the COVID pandemic. He claimed he got an oral promise from directors that the extra pay would be honored.
Before a hearing last week, Del Rio voluntarily abandoned his claim for promissory estoppel — that he allegedly received an oral promise with no signed writing for the additional pay — conceding that is unenforceable and, therefore, barred by Florida's statute of frauds.
Judge Ruiz said Del Rio argued he was not seeking to enforce the oral agreement because he labeled his claims as fraudulent inducement, negligent misrepresentation and conspiracy, and now characterizes his damages as "compensation supposedly lost when he retired." The judge cited case precedent that "a party cannot avoid the writing requirement of the statute of frauds by reformulating what amounts to a breach of an oral contract into a fraud claim."
Del Rio had given a time period in which he said the oral promises from the named directors took place, individually and collectively. NCLH and the defendant directors denied these promises ever happened and said oral side agreements are prohibited by the Florida statute of frauds.
In her dismissal, Ruiz said the exact dates and individualized statements underlying the fraud-based claims were not detailed and she rejected the plaintiff's argument that discovery could supply the "precision" necessary to "refine the facts alleged in the complaint" because the law requires that a plaintiff plead fraud with particularity before imposing discovery on defendants.
"Without the alleged oral promise, there is no alleged fraud, no alleged negligent misrepresentation and no alleged conspiracy," the judge said.
Ruiz also said Del Rio cannot recover from an alleged concealed compensation scheme in which his own complaint makes him a knowing participant and then ask the court to reward him millions of dollars when that arrangement didn't come to fruition.
