Appeals court upholds Marcos assets freeze

Associated Press

A U.S. appeals court has upheld a lower court's ruling freezing assets of late Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos that are being held in banks around the world.

In a decision issued yesterday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled the Philippine government lacks the standing to challenge the freeze order.

The order was first issued in 1986 and reaffirmed in September 2003 by U.S. District Judge Manuel Real, who is presiding over a class-action lawsuit filed by 9,539 Filipinos who won a $2 billion judgment against the Marcos estate in 1995.

The award has grown to $3.7 billion with interest, but none of the victims has received any money.

"It's a nice victory for the victims," said Jon Van Dyke, a Honolulu lawyer representing the class-action plaintiffs. "The Republic of the Philippines has been trying to block the victims every time they make any attempt to collect on their judgment."

Ownership of the funds has been disputed since they were discovered in 1986, soon after Marcos was forced from power and fled to Hawai'i. At the time, the deposits totaled about $356 million but have almost doubled from interest and later investments.

In 1997, a Swiss tribunal ruled that the funds were ill-gotten and approved their transfer from banks in Switzerland, Singapore and elsewhere to an escrow account at the Philippine National Bank.

The Philippine Supreme Court decided in July 2003 to forfeit the Marcos deposits in favor of the Philippine government after ruling that the Marcos family "failed to justify the lawful nature of their acquisition."

Real reviewed the court's ruling and said there was no evidence that the Marcoses were the rightful owners of the assets.