Manati Industries, Inc (MNII)

[MWM]

During the past 25 years, Gutierrez, who is well known in the Cuban community as an expert on confiscated properties, has helped about 500 Cuban exiles organize legal documents that identify them as the original owners of lands in Cuba.

He doesn't think the new Cuba policy will help Cuban-Americans inch any closer to owning their former land or real estate. Gutierrez disagrees with Obama's executive action but admitted, "we don't know what will happen. It may open new opportunities."

"WE DON'T KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN. IT MAY OPEN NEW OPPORTUNITIES"
Gutierrez, who is also president of the National Association of Sugar Mill Owners of Cuba, closely studied the fall of communism in Eastern European countries where the vast majority of people received either restitution or compensation. In many cases original home owners regained the title of their property with an agreement the current occupants could stay under rent control. Gutierrez is confident something similar will happen in Cuba. He says the government still has an intact registry of property owners before the revolution and there has never been a move to destroy the documents and issue new titles.

Expropriated properties are all too familiar for Gutierrez. His family lost about 100,000 acres of land mostly in the province of Cienfuegos where they owned two sugar mills, a rice mill, 15 cattle ranches, a coffee plantation, a bank, and an insurance company.

He's not worried the thaw in US-Cuba relations may attract US businesses to work in previously owned properties. "Foreign investors tend to stay away from properties they know were owned previously," he said, adding he's ready to bring legal action against US companies who do business in those properties. The 1996 Helms-Burton Act makes US firms liable to lawsuits if they do business in Cuba on property confiscated from Cuban-Americans or US companies.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/u-s-cuba-relations/recovering-properties-cuba-still-far-dream-some-cuban-americans-n271421