Mediation in the long-running fight over Larry Page’s $23 million purchase of two Caribbean islands ended in an impasse last week, leaving the ownership dispute over Hans Lollik and Little Hans Lollik back in the hands of the US Virgin Islands courts.
The latest failure matters because the case has already stretched nearly 12 years and still has no final answer on who controls the islands. Page and Lucinda Southworth bought the properties in 2014, but a developer, James Eckel, later claimed he already had a contract to buy them himself, setting off a legal battle that moved through Texas courts before a 2019 appeals ruling said Eckel was entitled only to financial damages, not the islands.
The renewed fight in the Virgin Islands is centered on a document Page has asked the court to remove, one that Great Hans says asserts a legal claim to the islands. Page’s entity, USVI Properties, wants a ruling that it owns the land free and clear of any Great Hans claim, but the latest filing said the matter will require court action after mediation collapsed. The court papers did not set out a next hearing date.
That stalemate is sharpened by a dispute over what Page himself knows. His lawyers have argued he held no unique or superior knowledge and fought to block his deposition, while Great Hans has said the court should not rule before Page provides recorded, sworn testimony. The disagreement keeps the case from turning on paper claims alone and makes his testimony a central piece of the record if the judge decides to press ahead.
Some of the transaction’s details have already surfaced in testimony. Gil Simon said he did not reveal Page’s involvement to the sellers in order to keep his identity concealed, and Wayne Osborne testified in a 2016 deposition about the island purchase. Page’s lawyers have also said he planned to keep the islands in their undeveloped green and natural state, a position that fits with the low-profile approach that has shadowed the deal since the start.
The unresolved case is now one more chapter in Page’s private island holdings, which include Cayo Norte and a majority stake in Fiji’s Tavarua Island. But for Hans Lollik and Little Hans Lollik, the immediate future is not another mediation session. It is a court decision on a fight that has already outlasted almost every timeline attached to it.
