UN, IMF TO COOPERATE ON SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT, DISCOVERY

The International Monetary Fund has announced a new policy on cooperating with support proceedings involving its employees. It will voluntarily comply with payroll withholding orders, garnishment, etc., and with discovery requests.

The policy lists specific information that it will reveal in response to subpoenas and other discovery requests. It also lists certain information that it will require to be stated in payroll withholding orders, and other guidelines and limits on how it will honor them. It also provides an internal procedure that employees may use to contest the withholding. To get a copy of the policy, call the IMF at 202-623-7000 and ask for Staff Bulletin 99/11 and its Attachment.

The Fund said that it was also considering allowing its pensions to be divided by court order.
The IMF's announcement follows similar ones by the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, reported in our last issue.

The United Nations also has announced that it will allow garnishment, but only on a case-by-case basis. The UN's policies and procedures for doing this are reportedly still being formulated and may take a while to implement.

These developments are the result of the efforts of the State Department, the A.B.A. Family Law Section, and the Rockville, Maryland, Center for the Support of Families. At its annual meeting last month in Atlanta, the A.B.A. House of Delegates called on the U.S. goverment to use whatever means are at its disposal to induce these and other international organizations to cooperate fully with family law cases involving their employees.