Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Ontario Court Hearings

The Settlement Approval Hearing in Ontario was held on February 5 & 6. I believe the hearing went very well. Justice Winkler, who presided over the hearing, is the same judge who has had jurisdiction over the 1986-1990 settlement. He is very aware of all of the issues, and is a very senior class action judge.

We provided to Justice Winkler copies of the various letters people had written in about the settlement.

In addition, there were several class members in the courtroom, and Justice Winkler allowed anyone who wished to speak an opportunity to give their views on the settlement.

At the end of the hearing, Justice Winkler indicated that he would not be issuing a decision until all of the other provincial hearings were completed.

The Quebec hearing is being heard today (Feb. 7) in Montreal. The hearing in British Columbia is on the 21st in Vancouver, and the hearing in Alberta is on the 28th in Edmonton.

No application forms will be available until after we get decisions from the courts. I'll post here when we have any news.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

1958 Start Date removed from Settlement

The Settlement Agreement has been amended to remove the January 1, 1958 start date for the class period.

The new definition of class period under the agreement is:

"Class Period" means collectively the period prior to and including December 31, 1985 and the period from July 2, 1990 to September 28, 1998, excluding the period from January 1, 1986 to July 1, 1990."

Reason for the Red Cross deduction

A lot of people have asked me why 8/11ths of the amounts received under the Red Cross settlement will be deducted from the new settlement with the Federal Government.

The reason for the deduction of the Red Cross settlement amount is as follows:

The concept of this Settlement Agreement is to provide pre-86/post-90 claimants with a compensation program which reflects parity with the 86-90 settlement, at least as far as the Federal contribution to the 86-90 settlement is concerned. The Federal Government contributed 8/11ths of the money to the 86-90 settlement, the provinces contributed the rest (3/11ths).

The 86-90 people did not receive anything from the Red Cross. This was a deal worked out with the Federal Government and the Red Cross at the time the Red Cross was under bankruptcy protection. The Federal Government and the 86-90 group both agreed not to assert any claim against the Red Cross so that all of the available money could go to the pre-86/post-90 group. They did this in recognition that the 86-90 group was getting money from the federal government whereas the pre-86/post-90 group was not.

Now that the pre-86/post-90 group is going to receive compensation from the Federal Government, if there was not a deduction the pre-86/post-90 group would end up getting more in total than the 86-90 group got (at least with respect to the contribution by the Federal Government).

I hope that clarifies things.