PROVIDENCE – Giovanni Feroce, current Benrus LLC CEO, settled two cases in Workers’ Compensation Court on Wednesday. Feroce settled with the Department of Labor and Training for inadvertently failing to comply with laws that require employers to provide compensation insurance for their employees for his involvement with both the minor league basketball team, the Providence Sky Chiefs LLC, and Benrus. Under 28-36-15 of the Rhode Island General Laws, the penalty for failure to secure compensation extends personal liability to corporate officers.
The larger of the two settlements on Wednesday was for a violation by Feroce, ruled negligence, for his failure to provide workers’ compensation insurance to the Providence Sky Chiefs for a combined 118 days. In that time, no injuries were reported.
The original fine for the 118 days is by law assessed at $500 per day, which was assessed at $59,000. The case was settled for about $13,902.
The smaller of the two settlements involved Benrus LLC and Feroce for the same infraction. The case was again pursued by the DLT.
Similarly, the violation was ruled negligence and not intentional. Feroce settled the potential $159,000 penalty for about $2,585. Much as in the Providence Sky Chiefs settlement, no injuries were reported for the 318 collective days that compensation insurance was not provided for employees.
Feroce claimed Benrus did not have any employees at the time it was not providing insurance.
Both settlements totaled about $16,487, significantly less than the original penalty, which totaled approximately $218,000.
This settlement comes on the heels of Giovanni Feroce’s settlement with the former owner of Benrus and moving the company’s headquarters to New York City.
Giovanni Feroce did not immediately respond for comment.
Chris Bergenheim is the PBN web editor.
