The 11 visa workers have won a default judgment worth more than $15 million against the prominent Filipino family that brought them to the U.S.
Bakery owners have not responded to request for a comment.
Tag Archives: L’Amande Bakery
Emil Guillermo: L’Amande Bakery case–Filipino workers’ claims jump to more than $15 million.
The case involving Analiza Moitinho de Almeida, her husband Goncalo, and her powerful father Juan B. Santos, the head of the Social Security System in the Philippines got more interesting late last week.
The court docs were filed last Friday in Los Angeles that ups the total damages and costs sought by workers to $15.2 million.
The court is presuming the bakery owner defendants, the Almeidas, have fled the country. As a consequence, the court directed the plaintiffs to file for a default judgment.
Sources tell me that Almeidas have completed the sale of their home in L.A. worth more than a million dollars this month.
Are they hiding assets? The Almeidas say no.
It’s unclear, however, if the profits are totally out of reach of the court if a judgment is awarded to the 11 former employees suing the Almeidas
My story here in the Philippines’ top daily.
Emil Guillermo: L’Amande bakery owners flee country, say to lawyers they won’t defend suit, then say to me they will.
If you’ve been following my reporting on the civil lawsuit alleging trafficking and labor violations against the L’Amande bakeries, owned by the scion of one of the Philippines elite families, then you’ll want to see the new twists in the case.
The lawyers of bakery owner Ana Moitinho de Almeida have told the lawyers for the 11 former workers suing Almeida, that the owners have fled the country and would no longer be defending the suit.
But this is inconsistent with what Ms.Almeida communicated to me.
Is it just a ploy? This comes after the plaintiffs failed to attach the Almeidas’ assets, which have been re-positioned to seemingly be out of reach of the court. The first court date had been set for late September.
Emil Guillermo: Owner of closed Filipino bakeries in LA speaks about the shutdown, and on the lawsuit that has rocked her business and family life.
In a direct communication with Emil Guillermo Media, Ana Moitinho de Almeida,the daughter of Juan B. Santos, and the co-owner with her husband Gonzalo Moitinho de Almeida of two recently closed California bakeries, admitted that millions of their joint assets were sold recently—not to protect or hide assets—but to fund their expensive legal battle against 11 former employees.
The Almeidas were socked this spring with a $1 million dollar civil suit alleging labor trafficking, labor rules violations, and immigration violations at their L’Amande bakeries in Beverly Hills and Torrance.
But in the last few months, the Almeidas have been liquidating and re-positioning assets, including their bakeries,real estate investments, and Los Angeles area home.
“We needed to find funding somewhere,” Almeida answered in response to my questions via e-mail. “Closure of the bakeries? How can a business survive when …charges, augmented by aggressive press, has descended without mercy, or fair investigation?”
It is the first time the Almeidas have made direct public comments on their asset situation.
Almeida insisted it wasn’t to hide or keep money from the suit, but an attempt to fight what she calls are unfair charges being made by E-2 visa workers whom she sponsored in an “investor visa program.”
Almeida has been posting pictures of her former employees showing that the workers’ allegations are trumped up charges and don’t reflect how they were being treated while working for the Almeida bakeries.
When I asked her why she has been quiet on the matter, she said: “How could I not have declined at that time when the mother load of a lawsuit just hit us? We are a small bakery. We did not have lawyers standing by to help us.”
I’ll have more from Almeida. In the meantime, here’s my piece on the Almeida’s sale of assets, as I first reported in the Philippine Inquirer, Manila’s top daily.
See my latest columns on the AALDEF blog.
