Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
LAWYERS representing the former Air Jamaica Workers who
are entitled to $1 billion in their pension fund have served the
Minister of Finance and the Attorney General with the court order
which appoints CIBC Trust & Merchant Bank Ltd., as one of the
trustees.
Attorneys Patrick Foster and Katherine Francis, of the law firm
Clinton Hart and Co., who represent the former workers, said on
Thursday that the former workers numbering more than 1,000 are
anxiously expecting the Government to pay a portion of the money
before the end of the year.
Mr. Foster said the former workers have been making daily
enquiries about the progress of the matter.
He said the Government had the responsibility to pay the money
because of an undertaking which it had given. He pointed out that
when the former workers took the matter to court contending that
they were entitled to the surplus in the pension fund, the
government gave an undertaking that if they were successful the
Government would replenish the pension fund to the full extent
required.
When the national airline was sold in 1994, the Government on
behalf of Air Jamaica Ltd. had pledged the $400 million surplus in
the pension fund to the new purchaser, Air Jamaica Acquisition
Group. The pledge was made as part of the current assets of the old
company. The workers then took the matter to court.
The Supreme Court first held that the money in the pension fund
belonged to the Government as ownerless goods. The former workers
appealed and the Court of Appeal held that they were entitled to the
money. The Government and Air Jamaica Ltd. appealed to the United
Kingdom Privy Council which held last year that the pension fund
should be divided equally between Air Jamaica Ltd. and its former
workers.
In July this year, Justice Neville Clarke approved the
appointment of CIBC Trust and Merchant Bank and former workers, Ian
Blair and Joy Charlton, as the trustees. The role of the trustees is
to demand payment from Government, manage the fund and make the
necessary distributions to the former workers.
The Government will have to pay compound interest on the pension
fund as a result of a Court of Appeal order. By a majority decision,
Justice Henderson Downer and Justice Uel Gordon (now deceased) had
ruled that compound interest was due on the trust fund from June 30,
1994 with yearly rests at 29.47 per cent. The amount owing with
interest to the workers is $1 billion.
