FRENCH INSURER REACHES ARMENIAN MASSACRE SETTLEMENT
Reuters
10/13/05 00:46 ET
LOS ANGELES, Oct 12 (Reuters) – The descendants of some of the 1.5
million Armenians killed under Ottoman rule in 1915 will share a $17
million settlement in a class-action lawsuit brought against French
insurance giant AXA <AXAF.PA> for unpaid life insurance benefits,
lawyers said on Wednesday.
The settlement is to be approved in November in U.S. District Court
in California, which is home to the largest number of Armenians living
outside Armenia.
The class includes Armenians living in the United States and abroad
who are 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 U.S. courts
despite the fact the United States, along with Turkey, does not
officially recognize the deaths as genocide.
In February, New York Life agreed to pay $20 million to descendants
of its Armenian policyholders killed in 1915.
Turkey has 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.
The California settlement will be administered in France, one
of the first countries to recognize the Armenian genocide. AXA
is headquartered in France and does business in the United States
through subsidiaries.
AXA agreed to donate several million dollars to various France-based
Armenian charitable organizations. It will also contribute $11 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 U.S. to officially acknowledge the genocide,”
said Mark Geragos, an Armenian descendant who was one of the lawyers
for the plaintiffs.