The clock is ticking for potential members of a $4.6 million class-action settlement related to former First City Bancorporation workers whose retirement plans were mishandled. Eligible former employees have until Friday, Dec. 18, 2009, to submit claims and join the class, says business attorney  David Furlow of Thompson & Knight LLP and counsel for the class.
A Houston judge has approved a settlement in the case that would distribute approximately $4.6 million to former First City workers. The case centers around a defined-benefit retirement plan established and funded solely by First City for employees in 1976. First City cancelled the plan for being overfunded 10 years later. The company then made lump-sum payments to some participants and purchased long-term annuities on behalf of other employees from the Prudential Insurance Company.  After First City was declared insolvent in 1992 and went through an involuntary bankruptcy, successor corporations took the position that the former First City employees should receive nothing from the annuity investments. Former First City employees who have questions about their eligibility should review the information on the Class Administrator's Web site at www.firstcityclassaction.com.
Lead Class Counsel Robert S. MacIntyre, Jr. of Houston's MacIntyre & McCulloch, LLP, emphasizes that these payments will not affect anyone's right to receive pension benefits.
"These beneficiaries are likely to be retirees in their 70s and 80s for whom this financial settlement could be very welcome," Furlow says. "There remain several hundred former First City employees who have not responded to our efforts to contact them about their rights to receive a distribution from the settlement fund, and the deadline to do so is approaching."