Schneider Electric USA has filed a suit against The Westin Grand Cayman on Seven Mile Beach after the resort did not return a US$526,000 deposit for a cancelled corporate outing booked for almost 500 of Schneider’s top employees.

The company, which specialises in digital automation and energy management, has a dedicated programme to award top staff who have exceeded sales targets with travel to destinations around the world.

The company said it had to cancel the planned stay at The Westin for nearly 500 company guests from the US, Canada and Mexico, because it was unable to “reasonably” secure air travel.

The trip, first booked for June 2020 and again for July 2021 was prevented twice by the COVID-19 pandemic and rescheduled to 24-27 July 2022.

The suit, filed in a Florida District Court in Tampa on 2 Feb., said Schneider Electric’s travel management company BCD Travel Services could not book flights before the programme winners were confirmed by 15 April 2022.

Two weeks later, BCD informed the company that flight disruptions and a lack of airline capacity made it impossible to secure direct or one-stop flights for 480 passengers from various US destinations to Grand Cayman.

Using chartered flights instead was not an option “due to strict duty of care restrictions with limited number of Schneider passenger on the same flight”.

“These travel disruptions have forced airlines to cancel flights across the country, as they face an unprecedented demand, due to lack of crew, understaffing issues, reduction of schedules, technical issues and more,” Schneider Electric said in its court filing.

According to the plaintiff, The Westin was only entitled to keep the deposit, if Schneider Electric had cancelled without justification.

The company, however, claims that its cancellation was covered by its hotel agreement with The Westin Grand Cayman, because it contained a force majeure clause that mentioned “curtailment of transportation services or facilities preventing attendees from attending” as one of the events justifying a termination of the agreement.

The airline capacity and travel issues were not within the reasonable control of Schneider Electric and made it “at least commercially impracticable” to hold its events at the Seven Mile Beach resort, the company argues.

Schneider Electric said its third-party travel management agent Incentives Plus had given the hotel timely written notice on 3 May 2022 and demanded a refund of the deposit.

Because the hotel has refused to return its deposit, Schneider Electric is claiming damages and interest in addition to the $526,351.82 it has paid.

The sum represents 90% of the “Anticipated Room Night and Banquet Food and Beverage Revenue Figures”, as well as taxes, service charges and resort charge, according to the filing.

Jim Mauer, the managing director of The Westin, told the Compass that it was a very unfortunate situation neither party wanted to find itself in.

He said, at the time in July 2022, the country was open, had airlift coming in and visitors were back on island.

“We were all ready to welcome them and excited to see them come to the Westin and to Grand Cayman,” Mauer added, “but they cancelled outside their cancellations terms.”