In what can be termed a welcome development for the Bangladesh garment industry, around 21 readymade garment units, suppliers to Sears, have, reportedly, won a US $ 40 million lawsuit against the latter.
According to Forbes’ report, the concerned Bangladeshi suppliers got bulk of their money back in a settlement with the privately held company, Transformco, which was set up by Edward Lampert’s ESL Investments hedge fund to acquire Kmart and Sears out of bankruptcy last year.
This the report maintained citing attorney Joseph E Sarachek whose firm, as per media reports, represented the 21 Bangladeshi garment units in a US $ 40 million lawsuit filed against Sears in June 2020.
The suppliers, who filed the law suit subsequent to facing order cancellations by Sears last spring, would, reportedly, continue to receive the pay-outs even as they got the initial payments from the settlement in September 2020.
According to media reports, Sears Holdings had in 2020 put around two dozen suppliers from Bangladesh in a fix after it allegedly cancelled or withheld orders and was, reportedly, not paying its cash-starved suppliers even as some suppliers were taken aback after Sears, reportedly, asked them to cancel orders that were shipped 3 months earlier.
The suppliers were obviously thrilled that we got them a significant return, reportedly, maintained Joseph who went on to add that over 100 factories — Joseph said he was still working through complaints from them — were yet to receive tens of millions of dollars owed to them by other large retailers.
