2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE TWENTY-THREE - Public Planning and Development (§§ 1 — 11273) › PART IV - Navigation and Marine Trade (§§ 2101 — 3223) › Chapter 102 - Port Authority of the Americas (§§ 2901 — 2923) › § 2905 - Authority—Purpose, faculties, and powers

The Authority is hereby created with the purpose of promoting, developing, improving, possessing, operating, and administering all the facilities of the Port of the Americas, and regulating the port’s activities. In order to achieve this purpose, the Authority is granted, and will have and may exercise, all the rights and powers as are necessary or convenient to carry out such purposes, including, but without limiting the generality of the foregoing, the following:
(a) To have perpetual existence as a corporation.
(b) To adopt, alter, and use a corporate seal of which judicial notice shall be taken.
(c) To formulate, adopt, amend, and revoke statutes for the administration of its corporate affairs and those standards, rules and regulations that may be necessary or pertinent to exercise and perform its functions, powers and duties.
(d) To have complete dominion over all its properties.
(e) To determine the nature of and need for all its expenses, and the manner in which the same shall be incurred, authorized and paid without taking into consideration any legal provisions which regulate the expenditure of public funds, and such determination shall be final and binding for all the officials of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, but it must adopt rules for the use and disbursement of its funds and it shall be subject to audits conducted by the Office of the Comptroller of Puerto Rico.
(f) To sue and be sued under its own name, to file complaints and defend itself in all courts of justice and administrative bodies, and to participate in commercial arbitration proceedings.
(g) To negotiate and execute with any person, including any federal or state government agency, any type of contract, including, but without being limited to, administrative concession contracts pursuant to the provisions of this chapter, and lease, sublease, and surface rights contracts, as well as all those instruments and agreements necessary or convenient to exercise the powers and functions conferred to the Authority by this chapter.
(h) To draft and contract for the drafting of plans, projects, and cost budgets for, among others, the design, construction, reconstruction, extension, improvement, expansion, repair, operation, maintenance, or financing of any of the Port’s facilities, including the modification of such plans, projects, and budgets.
(i) To design, construct, reconstruct, expand, repair, maintain, finance, or operate any facility that the Authority deems necessary or convenient to carry out its purposes or to contract third parties to carry out any of the above.
(j) To acquire any property through any legal means, including, without limitation, purchase agreements; eminent domain proceedings, filed directly by the Authority on its own behalf, subject to the provisions of § 2908(d) of this title, or filed by the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico by request of the Authority, as provided in § 2908(b); or by mandate, bequest, or donation; and to possess, preserve, use, and exploit any property as deemed necessary or convenient to achieve the Authority’s purposes.
(k) To exchange, sell, lease, pledge, and otherwise dispose of any property of the Authority when deemed appropriate, necessary, incidental, or convenient in connection with its activities.
(l) To determine, fix, alter, impose, and charge rates, fees, royalties, rents, and any other type of fee or compensation for the use of the Authority’s facilities or services and for the articles sold, loaned, or supplied by the Authority, and to grant to the entity or entities with which it contracts for the operation of the Port under § 2510 of this title, the faculty to determine, alter, impose, and charge rates, fees, royalties, rents, and any other fee or compensation for the use of the Port’s facilities or for the services which said entity renders under the conditions and criteria established in the operating contract with the Authority.
(m) To be in charge of the enforcement and administration at the Port of the Americas of the provisions of §§ 2101 et seq. of this title, known as the “Dock and Harbor Act of Puerto Rico of 1968,” for which purpose it shall have, as to the administration and supervision of the Port of the Americas, all those powers which said Act grants to the Puerto Rico Ports Authority. The Authority’s powers shall include, without it being construed as a limitation, the power to:
(1) Control and regulate the navigation and maritime traffic in the Port’s navigable waters, including the inspection of ships and the movement of ships and cargo at the docks and in the port zone and impose the Port’s access fees it deems pertinent;
(2) control, administer, and regulate the use of the Port of the Americas facilities, except the public lands and buildings reserved by the United States for public purposes and the docks, buildings, or structures belonging to a municipality, unless the faculty to administer such facilities has been transferred from the municipality to the Authority;
(3) investigate, take oaths, receive testimonies, hold hearings, and issue citations requiring the appearance of witnesses and the presentation of documentary or other evidence which it deems necessary to comply with the purposes of this chapter and to determine by rules or regulations the procedure relative to such investigations, hearings, and citations, as well as the delegation of faculties, and
(4) impose reasonable administrative fines, which shall not be of less than one hundred dollars ($100) or more than ten thousand dollars ($10,000) for violations of its rules and regulations.
(n) The Authority may delegate to the entity with which it contracts for the operations of the Port under § 2510 of this title, the faculties described in §§ 2201, 2202, 2501, 2505 and 2506 of this title, part of the “Dock and Harbor Act of Puerto Rico of 1968”, so that said entity may administer the activities of the Port of the Americas.
(o) To appoint and remove officers, agents, and employees and to grant them the powers, impose on them the duties, and fix, change, and pay them the compensation determined by the Authority.
(p) To borrow money and issue bonds of the Authority in order to provide funds to pay the cost of acquiring or building any property of the Authority or to carry out any of its corporate purposes, or to refinance, pay, or redeem any of its outstanding bonds or obligations, and it may guarantee the payment of its bonds and the bonds of any of its subsidiaries, and of any and all of its obligations or the obligations of any of its subsidiaries by means of assignment, pledge, mortgage or any other lien on any or all of its contracts, revenues, income, or properties.
(q) To accept donations from any person, and to use the product of any such donations for any corporate purpose; Provided, That all donors, whether natural persons or legal entities, must be duly identified with their name, physical and mailing address, and social security number, and employer social security number in the case of corporations. Cash donations in excess of fifty dollars ($50) shall not be accepted, and the source of all donations in excess of ten thousand dollars ($10,000) must be identified.
(r) To create, by resolution, those subsidiary corporations the board deems convenient to carry out the purposes of this chapter and to transfer, lend or donate funds or any of its properties to such subsidiary corporations or guarantee any of its obligations; Provided, That, such subsidiary corporations created by resolution shall be public corporations wholly owned by the Authority and have those faculties and duties conferred on the Authority under the provisions of this chapter which, in turn, have been assigned to said subsidiary corporations by the board; Provided, further, That the board shall appoint the members of the Board of Directors of any such subsidiary corporations.
(s) To acquire, hold, and dispose of stocks, partnership interests, member rights, contracts, bonds, or other securities or interests issued by private corporations or partnerships, and to exercise any and all powers or rights in connection therewith.
(t) To procure insurance against losses in the amounts and with the insurers it deems desirable, which insurance may include, without it being construed as a limitation, civil liability insurance for directors, officers, agents, and employees.
(u) To exercise such other corporate powers, not inconsistent herewith, as are conferred upon private corporations by the laws of Puerto Rico and to exercise all its powers within and without Puerto Rico to the same extent as natural persons might or could do.
(v) To take any action or measure necessary or convenient to enforce the powers conferred by this chapter or by any other law of the Legislature of Puerto Rico or of the United States Congress.
History —Aug. 11, 2002, No. 171, § 6.