MONTREAL – A lawyer involved in proceedings related to the Lac-Megantic train tragedy says relatives of victims could receive their share of a $77-million settlement as early as August.
U.S. attorney Robert Keach said today U.S. and Canadian courts still need to approve the plan to disperse roughly $300 million to claimants after the disaster in 2013 that killed 47 people.
Keach said if there are no court delays, the families of the 47 victims as well as the relatives of a firefighter who committed suicide after the disaster will begin to receive cheques by August or early September.
The $300 million was cobbled together from nearly two dozen companies, including oil-exploration firms, tank car owners, Irving Oil and Montreal Maine and Atlantic Railway.
More than $77 million of that sum is earmarked for families of victims, while the rest will go to municipal, provincial and federal governments as well as other claimants.
Canadian Pacific Railway and World Fuel Services Corp., two major defendants in the wrongful death lawsuit, are not part of the settlement and lawyers for the victims are continuing their fight to receive payments from them.
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