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Stanford Ponzi Scheme Opens Supreme Court Term 

Dispute Over Whether Law and Insurance Firms Can Be Sued Is Among Spate of Business Cases on Docket.

 By BRENT KENDALLCONNECT

Victims of his Ponzi scheme want to be able to sue third parties.

When Supreme Court justices return to the bench Monday after a three-month summer break, R. Allen Stanford's $7 billion Ponzi scheme will await them.

 The court will hear oral arguments on the first day of its 2013-14 term to decide whether Mr. Stanford's victims should be allowed to sue third parties such as law firms and insurance brokers on allegations that they aided Mr. Stanford's scheme.

 Advocates for the defendants warn that allowing such lawsuits could compromise congressional efforts to curb unwarranted litigation that affects securities markets.

 Supporters of Mr. Stanford's victims say Congress never intended to shield wrongdoers in cases where people were tricked into investing in bogus private offerings.

 The case is among more than two dozen on the court's docket that could have implications for businesses. "These aren't the sexiest cases but they're incredibly important," says Thomas C. Goldstein of Goldstein & Russell PC, a veteran attorney before the high court who will argue for victims of the Stanford Ponzi scheme.
Mr. Stanford, once known for his jets, yachts and passion for cricket, was convicted last year and sentenced to 110 years in prison. U.S. authorities said the financier bilked investors by selling them certificates of deposit that he falsely claimed were backed by safe investments. Instead, he used new sales of CDs to pay other investors while funneling money into risky real-estate assets and his own businesses, prosecutors said.

 Investors now are going after law and financial-services firms with ties to Mr. Stanford's operations. Victims allege in class-action lawsuits filed under Louisiana and Texas laws that SEI Investments Co. SEIC -1.14%and insurance brokers, including subsidiaries of Willis Group Holdings misrepresented the CDs as safe investments. The plaintiffs also allege that law firms Proskauer Rose LLP and Chadbourne & Parke LLP knowingly helped Mr. Stanford's Antigua-based bank evade regulatory oversight.

 The defendants say that defrauded investors are targeting deep-pocketed third parties with remote connections to the Stanford enterprise because Mr. Stanford and his companies are insolvent.

Pennsylvania-based SEI declines to comment beyond its court papers, which say it merely provided a Stanford affiliate with back-office services. Willis Group says in briefs that it helped Mr. Stanford's bank purchase ordinary insurance policies. A spokeswoman says the company looks forward to the Supreme Court's review.

 The law firms say in briefs that they didn't make misrepresentations to investors, calling the suits baseless. Representatives for the law firms didn't respond to requests for comment.

 The defendants will be represented Monday by prominent Supreme Court lawyer Paul Clement of Bancroft PLLC, who will argue that the lawsuits are barred under the 1998 federal Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act, which largely prohibits state-law class-action claims for securities fraud.

 Mr. Clement says in briefs that Congress was concerned about abusive litigation and wrote the law broadly to stop "enterprising lawyers" from using state law to evade federal limits imposed by Congress and the Supreme Court.

 The defendants received a boost from the Obama administration, which filed a brief, signed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, urging the Supreme Court to rule against the investor suits in Chadbourne & Parke v. Troice.

 The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that the cases against the third parties could move forward. The appellate court, which is based in New Orleans, held that the fraudulent CDs weren't securities traded on national markets, meaning that the federal restrictions on securities-fraud lawsuits didn't apply in the same way.

 "We don't think Congress wanted to snuff out really the only effective remedy for fraud in these state-regulated CDs," says Mr. Goldstein, the plaintiffs' lawyer.


Read More: http://sivg.org.ag/topic203.html 

 For a full and open debate on the Stanford Receivership visit the Stanford International Victims Group - SIVG official forum http://sivg.org.ag/