Delays to payment of VA /BA compensation claims.

[Nottingham Nick]

Apologies if this has been mentioned before, bit I just noticed this on the Air Passenger Refund website. It was posted on 10 Nov 08.

IMPORTANT UPDATE REGARDING DELAY IN THE TIMING OF REFUND PAYMENTS

On October 21, 2008, three Objectors appealed the Order and Final Judgment approving the Settlements. The Objectors argue..........
...... Resolution of this appeal is likely to take at least six months, and could take more than a year (or several years), depending on the speed with which the appeals court decides the issue. ALL PAYMENTS TO ALL CLAIMANTS IN THE UNITED STATES AND THE UNITED KINGDOM WILL BE DELAYED UNTIL THE APPEAL BY THE THREE OBJECTORS IS RESOLVED.


The next para from 29 Sep 08 is also interesting:
On September 26, 2008, the Court granted final approval of the Settlements. The Court also preliminarily approved Class Counsel's request for $23 million dollars in attorneys' fees and expenses, which is to be paid by British Airways and Virgin Atlantic separately..... [:0][:(!]

Nick

[RichardMannion]

Bet the attorneys are getting their money now....

Who were the objectors ?

[RichardMannion]

And here are the addresses of the the 3 muppets that objected:

https://www.airpassengerrefund.co.uk/Do ... 110608.pdf

[Darren Wheeler]

[ii][n][ii][n][ii][n][ii][n][ii][n][ii][n]

Looks like they have a beef with UK to non US destinations.

[RichardMannion]

Is it? Maybe I am misreading it but it was about non US/UK people buying tickets to/from London to a non-US destination. Even though all of them have UK addresses and the first muppet is an American citizen so qualifies. The bit on the last 2 pages seems to be their whinge, that each claimaint gets 1/3rd of the surcharge back, and they don't think that is a fair distribution of the settlement as people who paid the fee later on in the collusion would have been impacted more.

Everyone else seemed happy that they were getting something, but these people clearly weren't happy so have taken it upon themselves to stall it for the rest of us. Group Xmas card anyone?

[preiffer]

Dickheads. Just dickheads.

I mean, for the £20 'extra' they're each going to get, HOW many millions will be WASTED on lawyers? Dickheads.

Rather unwise to do what they did, as their addresses are now public domain.

Also, in some ofther cases the momey has gone to charity. In this instance it was being refunded to people who wanted to claim.

Effectively 2 households have put this on hold for thousands of people.

What were they hoping to achieve ?

I think that we should give them the gift of feedback !

Mark

Seems this objection has been thrown out.

See here.

FM

quote:Originally posted by FamilyMan
Seems this objection has been thrown out.

See here.

FM


I love how they sum up the report: It is so ordered...

I might start using that in meetings [:)]

[Decker]

Make it so Mr Woggledog...

The only winners out of this are the lawyers.

[RichardMannion]

quote:Originally posted by DarkAuror
The only winners out of this are the lawyers.


Absolutely - read here for blatant pisstaking on fees:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Fli ... from_Libya:

'The Libyan government then proceeded to pay compensation to each family of US$8 million (from which legal fees of about US$2.5 million were deducted)'

'On 5 December 2003, Jim Kreindler revealed that his Park Avenue law firm would receive an initial contingency fee of around US$1 million from each of the 128 American families Kreindler represents. The firm's fees could exceed US$300 million eventually'

quote:Originally posted by RichardMannion
[quote]Originally posted by DarkAuror
The only winners out of this are the lawyers.


Absolutely - read here for blatant pisstaking on fees:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Fli ... from_Libya:

'The Libyan government then proceeded to pay compensation to each family of US$8 million (from which legal fees of about US$2.5 million were deducted)'

'On 5 December 2003, Jim Kreindler revealed that his Park Avenue law firm would receive an initial contingency fee of around US$1 million from each of the 128 American families Kreindler represents. The firm's fees could exceed US$300 million eventually'


I'm in the wrong job!

Back to the original case and to quote Homer Simpson 'I may not be a fancy lawyer' but from the summary of the judgement, the Judge has said the plantiffs (idiots) only went to US courts because of the potential of more money that could be awarded to them even though they are part of the class action.

So it appears that these plantiffs have more money then sense to bring a case to a US court paying for lawyers for an end result of what, an extra few hundred pounds?

Wonder if the lawyers were on a 'pay on a win result' contract.

[Darren Wheeler]

Going OT for a second. You could find yourself getting letters from these...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/19 ... esharing_/

quote:Originally posted by FamilyMan
Seems this objection has been thrown out.

See here.

Hmmm, well, an email received last night states the following:
quote:Dear Claimant:

We have received many enquiries regarding the timing for payment of refunds from the British Airways and Virgin Atlantic Airways Passenger Refund Settlement. Please note that on 21 October 2008, three Objectors appealed the Order and Final Judgment approving the Settlements. Resolution of this appeal is likely to take at least six months and could take more than a year, depending on the speed with which the appeals court decides the issue.

Payments to all claimants in the United States and the United Kingdom will be delayed until the appeal by the three Objectors is resolved.

Copies of the relevant court filings and a more detailed update can be found at http://www.airpassengerrefund.co.uk on the 'Reminders/Updates' page.

Kind regards,

Air Passenger Refund Settlement Fund
Email: [email protected]

Cheers
Michael

[mitchja]

I got the same email this morning as well.

Regards

quote:Originally posted by mitchja
I got the same email this morning as well.

Regards


Ditto here too !

Regards,

HG

[honey lamb]

Moi aussi

[Bazz]

So did I. It would appear that despite the Californian District Court ruling, the three muppets have decided to go a higher court (would that be the Supreme Court?) on appeal. As the email says this could take a long time and of course it means even more money for the Lawyers.

The objectors do raise an interesting point about jurisdiction. There is something unsettling to me about a US Federal Court claiming jurisdiction over travel that involved non-US residents, non-US destinations and a non-US airline.