$5M Bhopal agreement imminent

Press, 9 August 1985, Page 6

$5M Bhopal agreement imminent

NZPA-Ap New York Agreement is expected in days on a plan to provide SUSS million ($9.5 million) in emergency aid to victims of the chemical disaster at Bhopal, India, in December, a lawyer for the victims said yesterday. The money would be channelled through the Indian Red Cross to aid the estimated 200,000 people who were injured when methyl isocyanate gas escaped from a Union Carbide pesticide plant and drifted through a slum, said the lawyer, Jack Hoffinger. He did not give details of how the money, provided by Union Carbide, would be used, but said that final details were being settled with the Red Cross.

Mr Hoffinger spoke at a meeting between United States District Judge John Keenan and lawyers in the mammoth litigation that grew out of the accident, which killed an estimated 2000 people. Judge Keenan called on Union Carbide in April to provide at least SUSS million to aid accident victims in the poverty-stricken section of the central Indian city.

The company quickly agreed to give that amount, but the Indian Government rejected the money on the ground that Union Carbide had attached onerous accounting and reporting re-

quirements. The Indian Government is one of the parties suing Union Carbide in the United States. There also have been 103 American suits brought by private lawyers on behalf of individual clients in Bhopal, and all the suits have been consolidated before Judge Keenan. He appointed Mr Hoffinger to serve as liaison counsel, in charge of communicating with the hundreds of attorneys in the case and co-ordinating their efforts.

. Most of the plaintiffs' case is being run by a threemember executive committee consisting of Lee Bailey and Stanley Chesley, who represent lawyers who sued for individual claimants, and Michael Ciresi, who represents the Indian Government.

They have urged Judge Keenan to allow discovery — the exchange of documents that marks most important civil cases — to get under way immediately, to provide for a trial in September 1986.

A Union Carbide lawyer, Bud Holman, urged Judge Keenan yesterday to transfer the case to India, where, the company said, the suits belonged. Many legal commentators say that Indian courts tend to grant smaller damage awards than do American courts.