By Earl Bousquet
Sandals Resorts International (SRI) Executive Chairman, Adam Stewart, has scored a significant victory in the drawn-out legal drama, in which he has been targeted by those entrusted as executors of his late father’s will.
SRI’s legendary Founding Chairman, Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart, died unexpectedly in January 2021 – and since then, Executors of his Last Will & Testament have repeatedly refused to fully execute his stated and declared wishes.
Instead, they’ve been questioning the ability of the person The Founding Chairman chose as his successor – his son Adam — to run the interlinked SRI and ATL (Atlantic Traders Limited) empires.
The Executors approached the Jamaica courts to carry out a ‘red flag’ audit, citing ‘certain allegations’ levied against the SRI Executive Chairman in relation to Gorstew Limited, ATL and their subsidiaries in which the Founding Chairman held majority shares.
However, on March 26th, Jamaica’s Supreme Court struck down the ‘red flag audit’ request, ruling they lacked the legal standing to bring the case.
Responding to the ruling, one of Adam Stewart’s attorneys, Conrad George, said: “This judgment is significant.
“Butch Stewart, in his uncontested Will, left a majority interest in the ATL Group to Adam.
“But despite having obtained probate, the Executors have refused to transfer the shares to Adam, claiming they first had to use a foreign firm of accountants to carry out a ‘red flag’ audit of the ATL Group.”
The Executors asked the court to order the requested audit, but, according to George, “Mrs. Justice Brown Beckford’s decision to strike out their claim for such an audit is a step towards compelling them to comply with their duties as Executors and transfer the shares in accordance with Mr. Stewart’s Will…”
In her ruling, Mrs. Justice Brown Beckford noted that the executors are not, as a matter of law, constituted trustees of the estate, as the duties which they were seeking to carry out by this claim are clearly executorial and not trustee functions.
Mrs. Justice Brown Beckford gave the Orders on March 16, 2026, to strike out the Claimants’ statement of case.
The applicants were granted permission to appeal, but rather than accept the ruling of the court, the executors chose to appeal, persisting in trying to deny the younger Stewart the trust bequeathed to him by a pioneering dad.
Ironically, within days of the court ruling, Adam again demonstrated to both his prosecuting persecutors — and the world at large — why his father chose him to lead the empire he’d so carefully and skillfully crafted.
Earlier this year, Adam successfully resisted attempts to bar him from being party to the claim — and once he prevailed, went on the offensive, as he sought to dismiss this more-offensive assault on his good name – as also dismissed by the Supreme Court.
In the midst of what must be a time of great mental toll, the Founder’s selected successor still found and summoned the fortitude and willpower to cope with the personal grief over the loss of his wife Jill in 2023, by last Sunday (May 3) leading over-10,000 persons who showed up for the 2026 edition of the annual Jill Stewart City Run in Montego Bay (MoBay).
Adam didn’t run that morning, instead forced to opt to walk alongside he and Jill’s son, Aston, who was suffering from a knee injury.
But father and son were both overwhelmed by the latest overwhelming response to Jill’s city run.
As it turned out, MoBay’s Howard Cooke Boulevard was described as “a sea of people” never before seen in the island’s tourism capital.
“The family and I are just overwhelmed by the love and the support,” Adam told Jamaica’s Observer newspaper, adding: “It’s overwhelming, I’ve never seen so many people on the road at one time.”
He described this year’s crowd as “hugely bigger than last year” when 7,000 registered participants and over-10,000 hit the road.
But on Sunday morning there were 9,500 registered, with well-over 10,000 readying for the run.
The public response to the run reaffirmed to Adam and SRI that the company that built and runs the chain that ‘Butch’ built is in safe hands under the stewardship of its Executive Director.
But it also showed that Jamaicans strongly appreciate the role the Stewart family has played in giving Jamaica and the Caribbean two hotel brands that fly the region’s tourism flag at full mast every year, winning consecutive international awards for over three successive decades.
And that in the city where SRI was born — and from where the business that ‘Butch’ built continues to thrive, five years after his death and three years after Adam’s irreplaceable loss of the wife that made him a dad — and his dad a proud grandpa.