The judge handling the bankruptcy proceedings for The Weinstein Company has approved a settlement plan for the victims of Harvey Weinstein's sexual assault and harassment, a plan that Judge Mary Walroth says that "83 percent of the victims have expressed very loudly that they want closure through acceptance of this plan."
The settlement plan involves two pools of money. There is a $17 million fund for sexual misconduct claims that a claims examiner will divvy up based on a point system. There is also an $8.4 million fund for other non-sexual misconduct related bankruptcy claims.
The biggest holdup, and perhaps the most controversial aspect of the plan, is that anyone who accepts money under this settlement plan must agree to a perpetual release of claims against The Weinstein Company and TWC board members and executives, including Weinstein's brother, Bob Weinstein.
The way that the point system works is that a sexual misconduct claims examiner will hear from anyone who has a claim against Weinstein, along with any supporting evidence that they have for their claims. The examiner will then assign each person a certain amount of points (presumably, for instance, more points if Weinstein sexually assaulted them than if he "only" sexually harassed them). Once all of the claims are finalized, the examiner will add up all of the points and people will be assigned a percentage of the money based on their percentage of total points assigned. For instance, let's say that there are 200 total points assigned by the examiner. If someone has 10 points, they would be offered 5% of the $17 million, or $850,000.
The other possible controversial aspect of the plan is that claimants only get the full amount if they release Weinstein from all future claims. If they would like to continue to sue Weinstein beyond this settlement plan, they would only receive 25% of the money due to them (the rest of their share would be given to insurance companies). This aspect of the plan and the mandatory release of the claims against The Weinstein Company drew criticism from the people who objected to the settlement (some women also believe that women that Weinstein assaulted should be in an entirely different class than women Weinstein harassed).
However, as noted above, the vast majority of claimants support this settlement plan. Genie Harrison, who represents five claimants, said, “This is not a close call to us. My clients view this as a no brainer.”