An agreement reached late Wednesday ended the immediate possibility of a strike by dockworkers in Limón and Moín, collectively the country’s principal port.

The government agreed to give dockworkers the money they are owed from a 2005 accord no later than Sept. 22. Government officials are expected to seek donations from private firms that depend on the docks to seek their products.

The workers also exacted a promise from government officials that a group of high-level officials would visit Monday to discuss ways to strengthen the agency that runs the Caribbean docks in a way to avoid any possible concession that the government might want to give to a private firm.

Workers fear a concession because the government is turning over this week the Pacific dock facilities in Caldera because the country does not have the cash needed to modernize them.

The agreement was between the workers, represented by the Federación de Trabajadores Limoneses and the Sindicato de Trabajadores de Japdeva. The government agency that runs the docks is the Junta de Administración Portuaria y de Desarrollo Económico de la Vertiente Atlántica.

Signing the agreement were Walter Robinson Davis and Rachid Esna for the government and Winston Norman and Ronaldo Bleasar for the unions.

Union workers had engaged in a slowdown, and the central government moved 60 to 70 members of its tactical squad into the Limón area Thursday in anticipation of a work stoppage or blockade of highways.

The Arias administration said Wednesday that it would be happy to pay the money to dock workers once a legal way is found to do so. The fiscal watchdog, the Contraloría General de la República, cut the funds from the Junta’s budget. In addition, a recent Sala IV constitutional court decision has voided much of the 2005 agreement entered into by the Abel Pacheco administration.

Employees of BetonSports gathered in small groups at Mall San Pedro Thursday as they learned that the company would shut down.

Many of the employees had been furloughed since the U.S. government unsealed a 22-count indictment against the firm, its executives and shareholders July 17. But their discussions Thursday centered on if the company would pay the severance money required by Costa Rican law.

Usually an employee who is fired or laid off is entitled to a month’s pay for every year worked, vacation pay, salary due plus a proportion of the annual Christmas bonus.

Also involved were individuals who worked for Millennium, a sportsbook that operated with BetonSports. In all, the firm has bragged in the past that some 2,000 persons, mostly bilingual Costa Ricans and North Americans, worked at the companies in sprawling offices at the mall. The company also does business under other names and Web sites.

Also up in the air are the thousands of bettors, mostly from the United States, who had accounts with the company. They can only hope that the firm makes good on its debts. The accounts contain deposits made in anticipation of future bets and winnings.

The U.S. indictment said that between Feb. 3, 2003, and Feb. 1, 2004,  BetonSports and its related companies took in $1.23 billion in wagers. That would represent about $100 million in bets a month.

The employees were not in a generous mood Thursday. Most felt that BetonSports would fail to pay the severance money. Some had been expecting bank deposits.

The Ministerio de Trabajo confirmed Thursday afternoon that investigators have been looking into the affairs of the company for about a week. A spokesperson said the ministry initiated the probe instead of waiting for complaints. The ministry is in charge of enforcing the labor laws.

A spokesperson for the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social said that agency had no knowledge of any developments at the company. The Caja receives payments from employers and provides the health, pension and other social security benefits to employees.

There was no confirmation of the closing from the company, which declined comment. But many of the employees who mingled in the mall office confirmed what they had been told in meetings with bosses. The Web site has not operated for three weeks.

The U.S. federal indictment charged 11 individuals and four corporations on various charges of racketeering, conspiracy and fraud. The U.S. government seeks $3.3 billion in back taxes on wagers taken from the United States and $4.5 billion more from other defendants as individuals.

Costa Rica might have trouble finding local assets to use to pay the sportsbook employees. According to the indictment, deposits for bets went to Ecuador, Belize and other countries but not to Costa Rica. This was the electronic hub of the British corporation but it was not the banking center. The bulk of the assets here are computers in the multi-floored Mall San Pedro operation.

Internationally, the U.S. government is likely to freeze the company’s overseas accounts before Costa Rica locates them. One stipulation of the civil order that accompanied the indictment is that the firm return any funds of U.S. citizens that it holds.

At the mall, Costa Rican officials might be hard-pressed to find out who is in charge.  David Carruthers, the former general manager, is in jail in the U.S. State of Missouri. He was named in the indictment and is trying to make $1 million cash bail. He is a British subject and was arrested in Texas while changing planes on a return trip from London. The company said that he had been fired.

Carruthers was an outspoken advocate of legalizing Internet gambling and even wrote an opinion piece to that effect for the Los Angeles Times earlier this year.

The U.S. Justice Department says that Internet gambling is illegal. Sportsbooks here dispute that and until the crackdown last month on BetonSports, many executives here thought they were invulnerable to U.S. criminal and civil action.