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Donald Trump.
- The Trump Organization appealed to Panama's president for help in a business dispute.
- The organization asked the Panamanian president to intervene in a legal dispute over a luxury hotel - and warned of consequences to Panama if he didn't.
- The move is another example of the increasingly blurred lines surrounding Trump's business and his presidency.
The lawyers representing President Donald Trump's namesake business in a Panamanian dispute appealed directly to Panama's president for help in the episode, The Associated Press reported Monday.
Britton & Iglesias, the firm representing the Trump Organization in the legal dispute over a luxury Panama City hotel, addressed a letter to Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela dated March 22. That letter, provided to the AP, asked the Panamanian president to intervene in the legal dispute, arguing that the courts denied the Trump Organization due process that was in violation of a bilateral treaty.
The letter also warned that there could be consequences for Panama as a result.
Panama's foreign secretary Isabel de Saint Malo told the AP that her office was copied on the letter, which she said "urges" the executive branch "to interfere in an issue clearly of the judicial branch."
The letter brings to the forefront issues involving the president's personal business and conflicts of interest. The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The hotel dispute broke out into the open in February when Orestes Fintiklis, the majority owner of the then-Trump International Hotel and Tower in Panama City, arrived in the lobby of the building with associates. His aim was to oust the Trump Organization, which has managed the hotel since its 2011 opening. The Trump Organization, however, refused to leave.
In the days that followed, police were called to the property multiple times to "keep the peace," the AP reported. Meanwhile, after Fintiklis and his associates hand-delivered termination notices to Trump Organization employees at the hotel, witnesses said they saw Trump executives moving files to a room, where they were shredded.
Fintiklis wanted to drop the Trump name from the building and argued in court documents that the Trump Organization's mismanagement caused occupancy levels to drop while expenses rose. Fintiklis then claimed victory last month, saying Panamanian authorities allowed him to take over the hotel's administration.
"Today, this dispute has been settled by the judges and the authorities of this country," Fintiklis said, adding that he was so impressed by the Panamanian legal system that he would seek citizenship in the country.
The hotel has since been renamed The Bahia Grand Hotel.
On March 27, a US arbitrator ruled that the Trump Organization shouldn't have been evicted from the property while arbitration was ongoing. He said, however, that he would not reinstate the hotel's management, but said the case should have stayed in arbitration and never gone to the Panamanian court system.
Instead of fully divesting from his businesses or placing them into a blind trust, Trump passed control on to his two sons and a senior Trump Organization executive prior to taking office, a move ethics experts said did not go far enough in addressing potential conflicts of interest.
Panama, experts told Business Insider last month, provided an example of such a conflict.
"The president can obviously have a great impact on American foreign policy toward Panama," Jordan Libowitz, a spokesman for the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told Business Insider in March. "How could this affect that? We don't know, but it's not good that we have to ask."
Any US decision with an effect on the country will be under the microscope, said Larry Noble, senior director and general counsel of the Campaign Legal Center.
"It could be a trade deal, it could be aid of some sort, it could be a rule involving the Panama Canal," Noble said, adding, "This is a good example of what a presidential conflict of interest looks like."