Some 500 Stanford Financial Group investors and 66 former advisers should return nearly $1 billion-even if they took the money in good faith-so it can be spread among all the people whose investments disappeared in an alleged fraud, a court-appointed receiver told a judge today.
Dallas attorney Ralph Janvey is seeking some $40 million in fees and commissions the former financial advisers received for the sale of certificates of deposit in Stanford’s Antigua-based bank, $373 million of CD redemptions and interest payments from more than 500 bank account holders, and another $494 million from 49 other account holders who received CD redemption and proceeds earlier this year.
About 40 account holders have already agreed to turn over $18 million in funds related to CD interest and redemptions.
“If recovered in full, the $925 million in the aggregate would represent the Estate’s largest single asset, significantly greater in size than the amount likely to be recovered from all other assets of the Estate combined,” Janvey said in a prepared statement.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has asked the Dallas federal judge overseeing the case to block Janvey’s efforts at so-called “clawbacks” from investers.
“The commission simply does not make a practice of suing innocent victims of Ponzi schemes for the return of principal, and applies a great deal of discretion and consideration before asserting claims against victims for the return of interest payments received,” David Reece, the SEC’s lead lawyer on the case, said in filings previously.
Also today, the U.S. Justice Department opposed efforts by company Chairman R. Allen Stanford to use frozen assets to pay for his legal defense, saying the Dallas judge already ruled they’re tainted funds that can’t be taken from his investors.
And an internal SEC watchdog said today it did not appear the agency “breached its obligation to vigorously pursue allegations of wrongdoing in the Stanford matter” when it pulled back on its investigation last year at the request of the Department of Justice.
An SEC civil case and a criminal indictment allege that Allen Stanford and others defrauded investors in a multibillion dollar Ponzi scheme in which early investors were paid with money from later ones.
Source: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/stanford/6551819.html
Artículos Relacionados: