Bellas puzzled with settlement report

Former judge Timothy H. Bellas, chairman of the Garment Oversight Board, said he is puzzled with the report about the settlement money filed by the claim administrator and the lawyers representing the plaintiffs in the class-action against the CNMI garment industry.

In an interview with Saipan Tribune, Bellas said plaintiffs’ counsel and claims administrator Gilardi and Co. prepared a report on what’s going on with the over $5 million settlement money.

“They are claiming that 3,000 of the checks have been received by people and cashed. And that these 3,000 out of 29,000 account for 40 percent of the money. So I don’t know how that works out,” the GOB chairman pointed out.

Bellas said they are saying that the 3,000 and plus checks that were cashed account for 40 percent of the money that they’re supposed to distribute and when in fact 27,000 other people haven’t received their checks yet.

“And yet that only accounts for 60 percent of the money?” he noted.

“It must be that only the people that got big checks cashed their checks and the people who got $70 or $74 or whatever didn’t cash the checks,” he added.

Bellas said to him the figures seem “kind of a strange number.”

“It seems they are asking for more money to take more money out of the workers’ money in order to do their job (distribution of checks),” he said.

Over 2,000 checks that are part of the over $5 million being sent to 29,700 garment workers in connection with the class-action settlement are now in the possession of some garment factories.

But garment manufacturers could not distribute these checks because the workers have either been repatriated already or are problematic.

U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Alex R. Munson conducted a hearing on Friday to guide the garment manufacturers on how they should handle settlement checks/letters delivered to them and addressed to former workers who have already left the CNMI.

Munson earlier ordered the attorneys for the plaintiffs in the class-action to provide a written report to GOB as to how much of the over $5 million in checks being sent to 29,700 workers are returned or uncollected.

Munson directed the attorneys for the plaintiffs or Gilardi to submit such report to GOB no later than Feb. 2, 2007.

Munson said the report should specify how much funds that remain in the net settlement fund after the expiration of the 120-day period.

The checks will expire on Jan. 26, 2007.

Bellas is chairman of GOB that is composed of members—retired judges Cruz Reynoso and Richard P. Guy. The board was set up pursuant to the settlement to oversee the monitoring program of the garment industry.