The Labor Department has obtained a court order directing the pension...

The Labor Department has obtained a court order directing the pension fund of the Operating Engineers Local 675, Pompano Beach, Fla., to pay $37 million to the insolvent fund’s participants. The fund is being merged into the Central Pension Fund of the International Union of Operating Engineers, and the PBGC is paying $14.1 million of the $26 million being disbursed to participants immediately. The remainder of the money is coming from current and former contributing employers, so that participants receive the full retirement benefits promised by the plan. The court’s recent action is the final piece of a 1992 settlement of a Labor Department lawsuit against the trustees of the pension fund. The lawsuit alleged the trustees, who invested nearly all of the pension fund’s $62 million in assets in highly leveraged and speculative real estate in Broward County, Fla., acted imprudently and caused the fund to go broke. The suit also had claimed trustees shifted $1.26 million from the local’s welfare fund to the pension plan to cover up a shortfall, according to a Labor Department press release.