Signal International uses money from sale of Orange yard to pay off lawsuits
Signal International shipyard based in Mobile, Alabama, has filed for bankruptcy because of lawsuits in connection with the company hiring workers from India in 2006 at the Orange and Pascagoula, Mississippi, yards. The lawsuits contend that the company promised the workers green cards to stay or residency in the United States. The workers used their life savings or took high-interest loans to get to the jobs. The filings accused Signal of keeping the workers in slavery-like conditions in small, unsanitary housing and not allowing them to leave the shipyard premises. Last year Signal sold the Orange yard for $36 million and has been using the money from the sale to pay for the lawsuits. A federal jury in New Orleans earlier this year awarded $14 million to some of the workers at Pascagoula. The bankruptcy papers, filed in Alabama, say the company will use the other $20 million to $22 million from the Orange sale to settle the rest of the lawsuits. The lawsuits connected to the Orange yard were filed in federal court in Beaumont.
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