ARMENIAN MASSACRE SETTLEMENT REACHED

Seven.com.au, Australia
Sydney Morning Herald , Australia
The Age, Australia
Oct 13 2005

The descendants of some of the 1.5 million Armenians killed under
Ottoman rule in 1915 will share a $US17 million ($A22.34 million)
settlement in a class-action lawsuit brought against French insurance
giant AXA for unpaid life insurance benefits, lawyers have said.

The settlement was due to be approved in November in the US District
Court in California.

California is home to the largest number of Armenians living outside
Armenia.

The class included Armenians living in the United States and abroad
who were descendants and heirs of policyholders who perished in what
Armenians say was a genocide perpetrated by Turks.

It was the second lawsuit of its kind to be settled in US courts
despite the fact the United States, along with Turkey, did not
officially recognise the deaths as genocide.

In February, New York Life agreed to pay $US20 million ($A26.28
million) to descendants of its Armenian policyholders killed in 1915.

Turkey always denied there was a systematic campaign to annihilate
Armenians, saying the deaths occurred in partisan fighting and chaos
during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

Advertisement AdvertisementThe California settlement would be
administered in France, one of the first countries to recognise the
Armenian genocide.

AXA headquarters in France does business in the United States through
subsidiaries.

AXA agreed to donate several million dollars to various France-based
Armenian charitable organisations.

It would also contribute $US11 million ($A14.45 million) toward a
fund designed to pay valid claims of heirs of policyholders with AXA
Group subsidiaries that did business in the Turkish Ottoman Empire
before 1915.

In the chaos that surrounded the killings, many policyholders were
unable to obtain their insurance proceeds.

“The AXA and New York Life settlements are important building blocks
not only toward seeking financial recovery for the losses resulting
from the Armenian genocide but also in our ultimate goal, which is
for Turkey and the US to officially acknowledge the genocide,” said
Mark Geragos, an Armenian descendant who was one of the lawyers for
the plaintiffs.