Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. v. Arelma, Inc.

ORDER

In 1972, Ferdinand Marcos, then the President of the Republic of the Philippines, deposited approximately $2 million with Merrill Lynch in New York City. That money sat in a Merrill Lynch account for the next thirty-odd years, growing to approximately $33.8 million worth of cash and securities. By 2000, a number of claimants to Marcos’s estate had come knocking, so Merrill Lynch filed an inter-pleader to determine who should get the money. That action ended up in the District of Hawaii before the same judge who had presided over a multibillion-dollar class action against Marcos for human…