Insurance Settlements

[Joseph]

AMERICAN ARMENIAN ATTORNEYS TO MEET WITH GERMAN OFFICIALS

Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
May 08 2007

BERLIN, MAY 8, NOYAN TAPAN - ARMENIANS TODAY. A group of American
Armenian attorneys plans to meet on Thursday in Berlin with German
officials to negotiate on the judicial action brought against the
German Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank, DPA agency states. The
attorneys also hope to meet with representatives of the mentioned
banks.

To recap, those banks hid the property deposited by Armenians before
the World War I and Genocide and hamper their compensation.

The German parliament affirmed a draft in 2005 by which it
demanded from Turkey to accept its "role" in the issue of the
massacre of Armenians, but, however, did not qualify that crime
as a genocide. German legislators called on the German government
to make all efforts for Turkey and the country parliament confront
their history, assist creation of an Armenian and Turk historians'
joint commission and open their archives.

[Araxi]

Forgive me as I'm about to expose a huge amount of ignorance here.

My Dad mentioned something about an insurance settlement before he died. I can't remember much of the details, except that he thought it was probably too late to claim (but he thought my grandfather was one of the names listed and was asking me to help him prove it).

Are there lots of actions like this, or is this likely to be the same one that my Dad was talking about?

[Joseph]

Forgive me as I'm about to expose a huge amount of ignorance here.

My Dad mentioned something about an insurance settlement before he died. I can't remember much of the details, except that he thought it was probably too late to claim (but he thought my grandfather was one of the names listed and was asking me to help him prove it).

Are there lots of actions like this, or is this likely to be the same one that my Dad was talking about?

I don't think it's too late. Contact these two law firms (both in LA I believe):


Yeghiayan & Associates;

Kabateck, Brown, Kellner, and Geragos &
Geragos

If your grandfather is on their list(s), your family is entitled to a settlement.

[Gavur]

Armenian-American attorneys meet with German officials re AXA
From: Diane Rumbaugh <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, 12 May 2007 04:45:27 -0700 (PDT)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CONTACTS:

Brian Kabateck Mark
Geragos

Kabateck Brown Kellner LLP Geragos &
Geragos

213-217-5000 213
625-3900

[email protected]
[email protected]

Cell: 310-780-2309



Diane Zakian Rumbaugh Vartkes
Yeghiayan

Rumbaugh Public Relations Yeghiayan
Law Firm

805-493-2877
818-242-7400

[email protected]
[email protected]





FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 11,
2007



Armenian-American Attorneys Meet With German Officials/

Deutsche & Dresdner Bank, Defendants in Armenian Genocide-Related Case,
Refuse to Meet



BERLIN, GERMANY--Three Armenian-American attorneys, Brian S.
Kabateck, Mark J. Geragos and Vartkes Yeghiayan, are in Berlin, Germany
seeking to meet with officials from Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank over
lawsuits stemming from the 1915 Armenian Genocide in what is now Turkey.
So far, the banks refuse to meet. The attorneys filed a lawsuit last
year against Deutsche and Dresdner Banks charging the two banks held
Armenian families' money and assets that had been deposited in their
banks before 1915 and retained assets looted by the Turkish government.
(Varoujan Deirmenjian, et. al. v. Deutsche Bank, A.G., Dresdner Bank,
A.G., et. al., January 13, 2006, Los Angeles Superior Court).



The attorneys met with German officials while in Berlin
yesterday. The attorneys believe the meeting was productive. The content
of the meeting is confidential. At a news conference after the meeting,
Kabateck, Geragos and Yeghiayan discussed the present status of the suit
against Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank and asked that the banks be good
corporate citizens and sit down to discuss resolution of the claims
against them.



"The German government has been very admirable in
acknowledging the Armenian Genocide," says Kabateck, partner with the
Los Angeles, California-based Kabateck Brown Kellner. "Turkey says it
didn't happen. It is shameful that Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank are
acting more in line with Turkey and do not feel obligated to return
assets rightfully belonging to Armenians. It just adds to the disregard
and degradation of a group of people that have suffered horribly."



Deutsche Bank's attorneys in the United States state that
the banks will not meet with the plaintiff's attorneys until pending
motions seeking its attorneys' disqualification for tampering with
plaintiff's expert consultant are withdrawn. "Deutsche Bank's
precondition to meet with us appears to be a tacit recognition of the
strength of our expert tampering charges," says Mark Geragos, partner
with Geragos & Geragos. "At this point, just about all the Armenians
who lived through the genocide have passed away. The German banks
probably think if they wait long enough, no one will be left to seek the
assets that were theirs. Armenians are a very determined people. We do
not give up. Now, it's up to Armenian descendants to make sure their
ancestors are not forgotten."



Kabateck, Geragos and Yeghiayan were in Paris earlier this
week to announce the claim filing process for a $17.5 million settlement
in a class action lawsuit brought against French insurance giant AXA for
life insurance that went unpaid to heirs of those killed during the 1915
Armenian Genocide. (Kyurkjian, et. al. v. AXA, Case No: CV 02-01750 and
Ouzounian, et. al., v. AXA, Case No: CV 05-02596, U.S. District Court,
Central District of California). The suit is the second of its kind.
Attorneys Kabateck, Geragos and Yeghiayan are internationally
representing Armenian descendants in similar cases. In Martin Marootian,
et al. v. New York Life Insurance Company), they reached a settlement
with New York Life in which the insurance company agreed to pay $20
million to descendants of Armenian policyholders killed during the
genocide.



"These settlements have brought us one step closer to
universal Genocide recognition by forcing everyone who ignorantly denies
the Armenian Genocide, especially those Turkish citizens who have been
blinded by years of state sponsored propaganda, to come to grips with
reality and see that had there not been a genocide, these multinational
corporations would not have paid millions in settlement," states
Yeghiayan principle of Glendale, California-based Yeghiayan &
Associates.



Armenians can obtain a list of individuals who had purchased insurance
from AXA in the Ottoman Empire between 1880 and 1930 by going to
www.armenianinsurancesettlement.com. The instructions are in English and
Armenian. A policy claim form must be filled out and submitted to a
Settlement Fund Board in order to have a claim considered for payment.
The deadline for submission is October 1, 2007.

[Joseph]

PanARMENIAN.Net

AXA published list of Genocide victims insured till 1915
30.06.2007 15:18 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ AXA French Insurance Company has published the list
of people who were insured by its Turkish branch till 1915 and who
fell victims to the Armenian Genocide. Heirs of the Genocide victims,
who find last names of their ancestors in the list, should file an
application till October 1, 2007.

Besides, those who are sure that their ancestors were insured by AXA
can also submit applications. According to an agreement concluded with
the company, AXA will assign $17 million in all. $3 million will be
allocated to Armenian benevolent organizations functioning in
France. $3 million will cover the costs and will also be spent on
notifications to the victims' relations. $11 million will be allotted
to the fund that will start paying insurance fees.

The lists of people insured by AXA are posted on

https://www.armenianinsurancesettlement.com

[Joseph]

0/07/2007 | Moscow News,?28 2007
France to Pay Armenian Massacre Descendants

YEREVAN (AFP) - The descendants of victims of a World War I massacre of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire can apply for payments from French insurance giant AXA until October, lawyers said.

AXA settled a class-action lawsuit in 2005 with a $17.5 million settlement in favor of the heirs of policy-holders who were unable to claim insurance from current subsidiaries of the company that were operating in the Ottoman Empire.

AXA has released a list of 7,000 names of victims whose heirs may be eligible for payments. Applicants must present documented evidence of their relationship with the victims, the law firm said.

Barseg Gardalian, a lawyer with the US-based firm that filed the class-action suit, told a press conference in Yerevan that a settlement board has been accepting applications since April 1.

The deadline for requests is October 1, Gardalian said.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen were victims of a genocide under the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century.

Turkey argues that 300,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife during World War I when Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia and sided with invading Russian troops.

Similar class-action suits claiming restitution for deposits allegedly seized by Ottoman authorities and transferred to Europe have been filed against major Western banks, including Germany's Deutsche and Dresdner banks.

[Gavur]

Armenians say!

[Joseph]

AZG Armenian Daily #155, 29/08/2007


Genocide Recompensation

ABOUT 650 DESCENDANTS OF AXA LIFE INSURANCE HOLDERS APPLY FOR COMPENSATION

According to an official of RA Justice Ministry, 650 Armenian citizens, descendants of life insurances policyholders, issued by the French Insurance Company AXA to the Armenians, who perished in the Armenian genocide committed by and in the Ottoman empire, have applied for compensations. Last year AXA agreed to pay $17.5 million to descendants of life insurance policyholders. Tamar Shakarian, an aide RA Justice Minister, said 30 of these applications have been sent to AXA office.

"We spare no efforts to send the documents to AXA in a prpper and trustworthy way to guarantee the payment of compensations,’ she said. RA Justice Ministry set up a special council to deal with this issue, she said.

U.S.-based Mark Geragos along with attorneys Vartkes Yeghiayan and Brian Kabateck had filed a class action lawsuit in a California federal court against AXA for failing to pay death benefits for the insurance policies purchased by Armenians in Turkey prior to the 1915.

The proceeds of the agreement, which was mediated by Federal Judge xxxxran Tevrizian, are to be disbursed as follows: Up to $11 million for the heirs of life insurance policyholders; $3 million to be contributed to a newly-created French-Armenian charity; and $3 million for attorneys’ fees and legal/administrative expenses.

[Joseph]

http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/news/world/20080107-Armenia-genocide-Axa-descendents-compensation.html

MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 2008
By Julien Le Bot / FRANCE 24


Axa is legally responsible for contracts signed with the Union-Vie insurance company before World War I, over 90 years ago. Axa has been therefore obligated to honour its engagements and pay compensation to the descendants of Armenians who had signed insurance policies and were killed in the genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1916.
“Money is not the essential issue here,” Alexis Govciyan, chairman of the Coordination Council of Armenian Organisations of France and president of the Armenian General Benevolent Union of Europe, told FRANCE 24. “The compensation is symbolic, since it amounts to about 2,000 dollars per family. We are proud of the work accomplished by our lawyers.”

As many as 1.5 million Armenians were killed from 1915 to 1916 in the Ottoman Empire during what is considered as the first genocide of the 20th century. Their descendants have had difficulties obtaining compensation.

January 7, 2008 marks a step toward recognition. Descendants of the victims who signed an insurance policy will be able to claim compensation. The insurance has remained unpaid until today.

Following a 2005 decision in a class action suit in the USA, three American lawyers are seeking to find inheritors of Armenians who were insured by Union-Vie, a defunct French company acquired by Axa in 1996.

The Armenian genocide remains a controversial political and diplomatic issue, since the Turks refuse to use the term “genocide”, instead referring to the incident as a reprisal. The matter of indemnities, therefore, is symbolically important.

Axa is not alone

“Of the 7,000 files relevant to the case,” explains Govciyan, “just over one thousand applications have been sent in. A third of the claimants live in France, a third in Armenia and the remaining third are part of the worldwide diaspora.”

The Union-Vie life insurance claims by genocide victims are not unique. On the other side of the Atlantic, Vartkes Yeghiayan, a Californian of Armenian descent who is one of the lawyers working on the Axa case, negotiated 20 million US dollars in reparations from New York Life in January 2004, resolving 2,000 Armenian claims. To achieve this goal, he did research all over Europe and found about 30 descendants of policy holders.

The Union-Vie company has never concealed the fact that at the end of the World War I they had more than 10,000 Armenian insurance holders. The matter was put aside, but about 30 years later, they began to take responsibility for these outstanding policies.

Lawyers representing the descendants of the genocide victims used California laws to bring the Axa case to a Los Angeles court. In October 2005, an agreement was reached.

Axa agreed to pay a lump sum of 17.5 million US dollars. The descendants were to split 11 million dollars; 3 million dollars went to humanitarian organizations (the Armenian General Benevolent Union, the Blue Cross and the French-Armenian Fund); and the rest went to the lawyers.

For Axa, the matter is closed. “The money has been returned to the descendants. We have no comment on the ruling,” said an Axa spokesperson.

According to Govciyan, Deutsche Bank is the next in line to be approached on the matter of indemnities.

[Alexandros]

Fanis Malkidis

Two insurance companies are compensating the descendants of the victims of the genocide.


As weird or unbelievable as it may seem, the recording of an event in History, in other words the wretched attempt of Talaat Pasha, Minister of Internal Affairs of the NeoTurks in 1915, to collect ‘on behalf of the Armenians’ the compensation money from their death insurance, a death which he himself contributed to via mass extermination, was reason enough for lawyer Vartkes Yeghiayan to begin a 20 year legal struggle in the State of California with a view to claim back in favour of the descendants of these victims of the genocide of 1915, the above money. .

The defender of the victims of the Greek and Armenian Genocide, Henry Morgenthau, American Ambassador to Constantinople in the period 1914-17, states in his book Ambassador Morgenthau's Story (1918) (in the Greek publication The Secrets of the Bosporus,1918), that Talaat asked him whether the Ottoman Government could collect the compensation money from the life insurance contracts which were held by many Armenians (Ottoman nationals), while he personally had undertaken the organisation of their extermination.

Armenian lawyer Vartkes Yeghiayan, whose origins are from Sparti of Pisidias (Asia Minor), whilst reading the lines from the above book, conceived the idea of reclaiming this compensation money for the descendants of the victims of the Armenian Genocide. At first many didn’t take his efforts too seriously, however through strong will and hard work the distinguished lawyer was eventually vindicated. Recently the insurance companies New York Life and AXA, after a long and difficult legal battle were ordered to pay to beneficiaries the total sum of US53 million dollars.

At first, after individual legal cases, access was granted for access to the files of 2 life insurance companies, from which details were sought (the catalogues of insured citizens of the Ottoman Empire) of which most were Armenian and Greek. .

Then with the use of public announcements in newspapers, the descendants of the victims were found, and then law suits were filed in Californian law courts in the form of a ‘class action’ as is the legal procedure in America. .

The two companies were eventually led to compromise on the total sum of US53 millions dollars but compensation was indeed eventually rewarded to the victims’ descendants. The above case obviously creates a precedent for other victims of the NeoTurks’ campaign such as the Greeks who suffered the same treatment starting from 1914 and onwards, and in fact well before even the start of the First World War. Apart from life insurance contracts, it is also well known that in that same period in Anatolia, fires destroyed many buildings and belonging owned by Greeks, from Asia Minor to Thrace and also Pontus.



The serious nature of this life insurance payout must be addressed by the Pontian, Thracian and Asia Minor Greek organisations as it has created a different angle on the proof of genocide, one however which is not just a question of money but of morality and justice. It a therefore a requirement that any information regarding holders of life or building insurance contracts, of Greeks living in Turkey in that period, now be compiled. As mentioned above, the files of the two insurance companies consisted of many Greek names.

The official announcement at lawyer Vartkes Yehagian’s office in the United States reads as follows:

'We seek individuals whose families lived in the Ottoman Empire and who had purchased life insurance contracts from L’Union Vie and/or fire insurance contracts from the company L’Union Incendie. If you hold such contracts or letters which are referred to above, we request that you contact the office of…'

Yeghiayan and Associates
535 n Brand, Suite 270,
Glendale, CA 91203, U.S.A
Email [email protected]