A recent Supreme Court ruling in Jamaica has marked a major turning point in a years-long dispute over the estate of legendary tourism industry pioneer Gordon “Butch” Stewart, clearing a key legal barrier for the transfer of majority ATL Group shares to his son Adam Stewart. Attorneys representing Adam Stewart have publicly praised the court’s decision to dismiss a legal application brought by the estate’s acting executors, who had blocked the share transfer for years despite the terms of Butch Stewart’s uncontested will.
Conrad George, a partner at the law firm Hart Muirhead Fatta, emphasized the significance of the ruling for his client. More than five years have passed since Butch Stewart’s passing, and in his publicly filed, unchallenged will, the business leader left a controlling majority stake in the ATL Group — the core holding of the Stewart family’s sprawling business empire — to Adam Stewart. Even after securing formal probate for the will, George explained, the existing executors have repeatedly refused to complete the share transfer. Their primary justification has been a claim that they must first commission a third-party red-flag audit of ATL Group conducted by an international accounting firm, tied to unsubstantiated allegations against Adam Stewart connected to Gorstew Limited, Appliance Traders Limited and their respective affiliate subsidiaries.
To formalize their demand for the audit, executors Trevor Patterson, Cheryl Hamersmith-Stewart, Elizabeth “Betty-Joe” Desnoes and Hugh Martin Veira petitioned the Supreme Court for a court order authorizing the investigation. Justice Brown Beckford struck out the petitioners’ claim approximately two weeks ago, with the full written judgment officially released to parties last week. George called the ruling an important step toward forcing the executors to uphold their fiduciary duties and execute the transfer of shares exactly as outlined in Butch Stewart’s will.
Legal and business observers across Jamaica have framed the judgment as a critical development in the protracted dispute over estate administration, which has centered on control of the ATL Group, a foundational asset for one of the country’s most high-profile and economically influential business families. In a separate, recent development tied to the estate, the court has appointed retired Court of Appeal Judge Hilary Phillips to serve as an additional executor. George noted that Phillips was not involved in the dismissed legal application, and expressed optimism that her addition to the executor team will bring greater balance and reasoned judgment to the group’s future decisions.
However, the legal battle is far from over: within a day of the written judgment’s release, legal counsel for the executors — including Michael Hylton of the firm Hylton Powell — formally filed an appeal challenging Justice Beckford’s ruling. The appeal argues that the judge made a material error of law in two key findings: that the Jamaican Trusts Act does not apply to the case, and that the executors did not have legal standing to bring their original audit claim.
Appellants contend that under Section 4(1) of the Trusts Act, any property held by one party for the benefit of another qualifies as a trust. When Butch Stewart’s shares were vested in the executors following his death, they automatically became trust property meeting all the criteria for a trust defined under the act, according to the appeal. The executors also push back against the judge’s reliance on the precedent set in *Heather Montague v GM and Associates*, arguing that the earlier ruling was handed down before the Trusts Act was enacted, meaning it did not address the law’s provisions or its applicability to cases like this one.
The ongoing dispute has attracted close attention from Jamaica’s corporate and tourism sectors, as the final outcome is expected to set meaningful precedents for business governance and family business succession planning for large, influential corporate groups across the island.