A court-appointed receiver notified 1,000 employees of the Stanford Financial Group on Friday that their jobs were terminated in an effort to preserve the value of whatever resources were left in the company.
The company’s assets were frozen last month when the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil fraud complaint against Robert Allen Stanford and two other senior executives.
The S.E.C. has accused Mr. Stanford and his chief lieutenant of executing a Ponzi scheme in which more than $1.6 billion in “bogus” loans were made to Mr. Stanford over the last decade.
Laura Pendergest-Holt, the chief investment officer for the financial and brokerage firm, was arrested last week on accusations of obstructing the S.E.C.’s inquiry. Neither Mr. Stanford nor James M. Davis, his lieutenant, has been charged with a crime.
Salaries and benefits for about 85 percent of Mr. Stanford’s employees in the United States were discontinued immediately, according to a statement from the Stanford Financial Group Receivership, “in the interest of conserving and preserving the value of the estate because there are insufficient resources to continue to compensate all present employees.”
Most of Mr. Stanford’s businesses will be closed, and only a small number of employees will continue working to wind down operations and settle accounts, the statement by the receiver, Ralph Janvey, said.
The Stanford financial companies had offices around the United States, and in the Caribbean and Latin America. Many of its investors were from countries like Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela. The statement said, “Decisions regarding Stanford’s employees in locations outside the U.S. will be made and announced in the next few weeks.”
On Thursday, a federal district judge in Dallas approved a plan to unfreeze the investments of some 12,000 investors whose accounts hold less than $250,000 each. All together, they contain about $500 million of the $6 billion held in more than 30,000 Stanford accounts.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/07/business/07stanford.html
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