Fund holds off filing case vs Sword and his company

The NMI Retirement Fund will temporarily hold off filing a case against Express Electronics Ltd. due to the caseload of its attorneys.

Fund board chair Sixto Igisomar said this is the main reason why no case has been filed against Gary Sword’s company following the pension program’s decision to sue Express Electronics Ltd.

The Fund board earlier vowed to pursue a case against Sword due to the defective and non-functioning pension software system his company provided the Fund.

The board’s decision came following Express Electronics’ non-compliance with the 10-day ultimatum the Fund issued the company in July.

The pension software project cost $449,000 and the contract for Express Electronics was signed in 2008.

The Fund has already paid Sword $402,340, which represents 89.4 percent of the overall cost of the project. Based on the terms and conditions of the contract, the pension software system was supposed to be completed in 2009 but this never came about, resulting in a delay of more than three years.

Igisomar, however, pointed out that the decision to sue Sword still stands and will be executed soon after the Fund’s lawyers and counsels have more time to do it. He said all four lawyers are attending to “more pressing” cases and matters, a majority of which arose from the enactment of the Beneficiaries Derivative Act in September.

He said there’s no way the board will change its action against the contractor. “We do not have enough attorneys to continue with pressing the necessary action that we directed regarding the pension software contractor. But the board decision still stands and will never change,” he said.

In the single audit performed for the Fund in 2009, the pension software system was among the serious findings noted by auditors.

The Fund has two outside counsels: Viola Alepuyo and Braddock J. Huesman. These two had already expressed their intention to resign but have been asked to stay on just yet. As a condition, they pared down the number of cases they are handling and passed on these cases to the Fund’s attorneys, Christopher Timmons and Carolyn Kern.

Igisomar said both Timmons and Kern are overloaded with pending cases where the Fund is either a defendant or a respondent. Among these cases are the ones filed against Merrill Lynch, the government, and the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.

The Fund has been announcing its need for two more lawyers.

Igisomar said that he will recommend to Fund administrator Richard Villagomez to re-announce the vacancy announcement for a third time. He declined to say how many proposals were received by the Fund in the first two announcements.