Connecticut scrap yard closes after nearly 100 years

What one newspaper is calling “a bitter family dispute” appears likely to mean the end of 97-year-old scrap firm Shetucket Iron & Metal, Norwich, Connecticut.

According to an online article prepared by The Day, based in New London, Connecticut, the scrap yard closed in mid-July, “but several lawsuits involving the principals and Seder family members are ongoing in New London Superior Court, including one challenge of an agreement to dissolve the company and sell its assets and property.”

The newspaper article says company directors and officers are involved in the legal tangle, including “Walter Seder of Norwich and his nephew Stephen Seder,” who The Day says is the son of Edward Seder, a former partner along with Walter who died in 2014.

After the filing of several court complaints, counterclaims and motions pertaining to three different civil suits, “the two principals signed and filed a stipulated agreement on June 28, 2016, asking the court to order the company be dissolved and assets sold.”

That agreement could yet be nullified by additional motions that have subsequently been filed by various family members, according to The Day.

In 2013 a different newspaper, the Norwich Bulletin, ran an article reporting that the Seder family members were “willing to sell their property to city officials as a legacy project to boost economic development on the waterfront.” Walter Seder was quoted as saying, “For 20 years, the city has been coming to our property, looking at it, and nothing has ever happened.”

As the current situation stands, The Day reports the Seder family has been trying to compete in the difficult scrap market for the past few years, but currently Shetucket Iron & Metal “owes approximately $170,000 in back property taxes.”

One court filing refers to an offer by Connecticut Scrap LLC to purchase the company and property, but Walter Seder rejected that offer.