The Hong Kong detachment of the US Marine Corps has surrendered in a dispute against a lone Filipino maid trying to win back her severance payments.
For more than six years, Ellena Reyes, now 49, dutifully cooked, washed, shopped, ironed and cleaned for a squad of seven soldiers stationed in Hong Kong to guard the US consulate.
But when she was released from employment in 2001, the consulate told her she would not get statutory severance payments - amounting to $21,000 - because she was employed in three successive two-year contracts by different individual marines, rather than by a single employer.
With the ensuing legal battle set to reach the Court of Appeal next month, the US government has decided, in an abrupt change of heart, to cover her claims.
Leland Chu Lap-ming, a local lawyer representing the US government, said the decision to settle was made because the US Department of Justice had become involved when the matter reached the High Court.
He said: 'The US government didn't feel it was something they wanted to withhold from Ms Reyes from a moral and humanitarian point of view.'
