Havana, Cuba, 1st April 2019.- The Partner and International Operations Director of Lupicinio International Law Firm, José María Viñals, gave the lecture “How Investors Affect Changes in Title III of Helms Burton”, organized this past Friday in Havana, Cuba, by the Association of Spanish Entrepreneurs in Cuba. Viñals stressed that Cuba is making efforts to attract foreign investment and that the new obstacle facing the country is the recent partial lifting of Title III of the Helms Burton Act. This is a modification that would allow Americans to claim confiscated properties on the island.
José María Viñals said that the Law seeks to strengthen and expand the extraterritorial scope of the economic blockade imposed by the US, in which the hotel and tourism sector would be, a priori, the most affected.
The lawyer explained that European companies, mainly those that British, French and Spanish, would not be affected at present by the partial uprising. However, the Firm’s partner found that the alarm among investors has increased due to the legal uncertainty that may arise from potential extensions of the survey.
Despite the uncertainty generated, Viñals emphasized the protection systems that the EU makes available to European companies and citizens, highlighting antidote standards, such as Regulation (EC) No. 2271/96 adopted by the Council of the European Union on the 22nd November 1996. This prohibits the execution of sentences derived from the Helms-Burton Act and prohibits compliance with any obligation or order of investigation related to this rule. Also, the companies would have the right to recover by means of actions against the goods in Europe that the claimants of the Helms Burton Law could have.
Finally, Viñals stated in the conference, that brought together more than 120 Spanish businessmen, that tomorrow, on Tuesday 2nd April an announcement is expected about the future status of the Law that will come into force as of April 17: “We will see if the current partial uprising was just a warning or the first step of a much more serious policy that, indeed, is aimed at damaging the interests of European companies in Cuba.”
