Judge in Miami:CDM must pay $ 80 million

October 22, 2008 7:07 AM

The claim by three Cuban dok workers who fled to America from Curaçao in 2005, was granted by a judge in Miami. The Curacaoan Dry Dock Company (CDM) has to pay 80 million dollars in damages to the three Cubans.

They worked sixteen hour shifts per day for a compensation far under the local minimum wage and without overtime pay. The circumstances under which they had to work and live were outright bad. Their work for the CDM was part of an agreement to pay off a debt between the dry dock in Havana and the CDM. It is not certain whether the CDM is bound to the verdict by the American judge who had already determined in August that the CDM could be held liable. A local judge will preside over the feasibility of the verdict. But the CDM has a good reputation throughout the Caribbean which could now be harmed should the company refuse to pay.

The CDM has up until now rejected all comments about the claim. The absence of their representatives during the proceedings of the case in the United States plus the fact that they did not have any legal representation, have contributed to the judgment by default of the judge that they are indeed liable. The CDM had taken the firm Proskauer Rose off the case due to irreconcilable differences but they did not take on another firm, eventhough judge James Lawrence King of the Southern District of Florida had urged them to do so.

The American lawyers of the threesome announced after the verdict that they will certainly collect the money of the claim at CDM. “We claim the rights of lien or we will seize the money which American firms still owe them. Doing business with companies in the United States will have to go through these men.”

(Source: National newspaper Amigoe)

21 October, 2008