A dense web of offshore corporations, complex international law, and a defiant CEO are clouding the future of the Miami Seaquarium, where a new, lender-appointed management team is trying to wrest control and cut a deal with Miami-Dade Mayor Daniela Levine Cava, court records show.
The rifts were exposed at a bankruptcy hearing in Delaware on Tuesday, where a federal judge said she’s most worried about animal welfare and the wages for the employees who care for them. The Seaquarium is a tourism fixture on Miami’s Virginia Key and was once the home of the 1960s TV show, “Flipper,” and the late killer whale Lolita, but many local leaders want to close it.
In March, saying the Seaquarium’s parent company had defaulted on financial obligations and was financially struggling, a lender-backed group asserted control of the company’s 30 attractions in eight countries and filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy case…