[LINK] "Cuba Property Claims, Yielding Pennies, May Spur Talks"

[rfmcdonald]

Bloomberg's David Glovin and Toluse Olorunnipa note how the imminent restoration of Cuban-American diplomatic relations is making the question of American property seized during the Cuban Revolution relevant again.

With the U.S. and Cuba moving to normalize relations and perhaps end a half-century trade embargo, the impoverished Caribbean nation can afford to pay Americans whose assets it nationalized after the 1959 revolution maybe 2 percent of the value of the seized property.

That’s why Cuban and U.S. negotiators are likely to search for other ways to compensate companies including Coca-Cola Co. (KO), which lost $27 million in machinery and real estate, and individuals such as Carolyn Chester, whose family lost an 80-acre farm on what was then known as the Isle of Pines.

“I’d rather be paid a fair settlement over a period of time than pennies on the dollar in one lump sum,” Chester said. “I know the Cuban people are poor, so maybe we can work something out intelligently.”

President Barack Obama’s surprise announcement last week that the U.S. will seek to establish diplomatic ties with Cuba and ease economic barriers resurrected an issue that had largely faded from public view in the decades since Fidel Castro grabbed power and nationalized foreign-owned assets.

The U.S. recognizes more than 5,900 claims against Cuba stemming from the expropriation of property owned by Americans in the aftermath of the revolution, according to the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, an arm of the Justice Department. The claims were worth about $1.8 billion at the time; today, they total about $7 billion with interest.