American hedge-fund billionaire Louis Bacon backs fight against $250 million Panama port

American hedge-fund billionaire Louis Bacon has been drawn into a fight with fellow American John McKeown over a planned $250 million port on Panama's Pacific coast, a project that has stalled amid a Supreme Court challenge, a UNESCO-prompted environmental review and lawsuits against the environmental groups opposing it.

Bacon, the founder of Moore Capital Management, owns Islas Secas, a 14-island archipelago in the Gulf of Chiriquí that operates as a private eco-resort near Coiba National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. His Moore Charitable Foundation works in the region through an affiliate, the Islas Secas Foundation, which has joined the "No a Puerto Barú" campaign, a coalition of about 60 environmental groups. The campaign wants the port moved to Puerto Armuelles, near the border with Costa Rica, away from the mangroves outside the city of David.

McKeown is president of Ocean Pacific Investments, a U.S. investment fund he founded with Scott M. Kalt. Its Panamanian vehicle, Ocean Pacific Financial Services Corp., is developing Puerto Barú in the district of David, in Chiriquí province, as a 20-year, phased project. The first stage is a cargo port meant to give Chiriquí's farmers a way to ship their produce. A second stage would add a terminal for small cruise ships, shops and hotels.

Court challenge and UNESCO review

Panama's Ministry of Environment approved the project's environmental impact study on Jan. 16, 2024. Six environmental groups asked the Supreme Court to annul that approval in September 2024, arguing that the port and a 31-kilometer navigation channel would damage the David mangroves, which the municipality declared a protected area in 2007. Opponents say the area holds about a quarter of Panama's remaining mangroves. The plaintiffs include the Centro de Incidencia Ambiental, known as CIAM, and Fundación Panacetacea, a whale research group, both of which are partners of Bacon's Islas Secas Foundation.

The court admitted the case in February 2025. It has twice declined to suspend the approval while it is heard, most recently in July 2025. Panama's government held a launch ceremony for the port in January 2025, when officials said it would create more than 1,200 jobs. The Procuraduría de la Administración, the state legal adviser, has recommended that the court find the approval lawful.

The project then ran into a second obstacle. After UNESCO raised concerns about possible effects on Coiba, the environment ministry opened a technical review of the port this year. Panama must deliver its final report to UNESCO by Dec. 1. The developer says its studies rule out any harm to the park and that the ministry told UNESCO in May 2024 that the project would have no direct or indirect impact on it.

Developer sues environmental groups

Ocean Pacific has taken its opponents to court. In August 2025, its lawyer, José María Castillo, filed criminal complaints for slander and defamation against CIAM and Adopta Bosque, another plaintiff, saying they had spread "technical inaccuracies" about a project that met the requirements of more than 10 government agencies. In February, the company sought a precautionary freeze of both groups' bank accounts and assets as part of a civil damages suit, and their assets were later frozen.

The groups called the move an "unprecedented attack" meant to silence them. "It is not an attack, it is our right to defend ourselves from the constant claims they make against the project," Castillo said. CIAM and Adopta Bosque deny defaming the company and say they want the port relocated, not cancelled. Business chambers in Chiriquí have backed the project.

McKeown said in July that the company had adjusted its construction schedule because of the legal challenges and that some investors had put off decisions until the rules are clear. He said the port would be built and that he was not leaving Panama.

Bacon's conservation record

Bacon, 70, built Moore Capital into one of Wall Street's best-known macro hedge funds after founding it in 1989, and in 2019 began returning client money from its main funds to focus on managing his own fortune. He is worth about $1 billion.

He set up the Moore Charitable Foundation in 1992 to protect wildlife habitat and water. He has placed conservation easements on Robins Island in New York and on about 90,000 acres in Colorado's Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and his foundation funds marine research, fisheries monitoring and monitoring of illegal activity in Coiba National Park.

Bacon has fought long disputes before. He spent more than a decade in court against Canadian fashion executive Peter Nygard over their adjoining properties in the Bahamas, a defamation case that a Manhattan judge resolved in his favor in December 2025.