Sunday 17 January 2010

Stanford Receiver, SEC Ask Judge to Put Investor Suits on Hold

Allen Stanford's receiver and U.S. regulators asked a federal judge to temporarily stop all lawsuits by investors against their former financial advisers at Stanford Group Co. and other Stanford-related entities.

“There have now been more than 50 cases filed in state and federal courts that somehow relate to the sale of Stanford CDs or the receivership,’’ Kevin Sadler, an attorney for receiver Ralph Janvey, said today in a filing made jointly with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Responding to investors’ document requests to support those lawsuits “will consume more and more’’ of the dwindling assets the receiver could use to repay all investors allegedly swindled by the Texas financier, Sadler said in the filing in federal court in Dallas.

Stanford investors have sued their former financial advisers and the clearinghouse and trust company that serviced their accounts in an attempt to recover some of the estimated $7 billion lost through what prosecutors claim was a Ponzi scheme involving certificates of deposit sold by Antigua-based Stanford International Bank Ltd.

In court filings, investors’ lawyers have urged the judge to allow the suits, which the receiver and regulators want to delay until Stanford’s criminal and SEC cases are completed. The investors claim their lawsuits are their best hope of generating significant recovery by tapping insurance coverage for the brokers and other entities before deadlines for filing such claims.

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