Allen Stanford Told to Disgorge $6.7 Billion in SEC Case

April 26, 2013
By Andrew Harris

R. Allen Stanford, the Texas financier convicted last year of leading an investment fraud scheme, was ordered to disgorge more than $6.7 billion by the judge in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge David Godbey in Dallas issued the order yesterday against Stanford, his Stanford Group Co. and the Antigua-based Stanford International Bank Ltd.

The order may clear the way for Godbey to grant a court- appointed receiver's request to make an interim $55 million payout to investors who lost money after buying certificates of deposit issued by the Stanford Bank.

"The fraud perpetrated was obviously egregious, was done with a high degree of scienter, caused billions in losses and occurred over the course of a decade," Godbey said, using the legal term to describe the mental state of intent to deceive.

A federal jury in Houston convicted Stanford of lying to investors about how their money was being handled.

"The truth is that he flushed it away," Justice Department lawyer William Stellmach told jurors in his closing arguments at the March 2012 trial. "He told depositors he was using their money in one way and the truth was completely different."

Stanford, 63, was sentenced to 110 years in prison. Maintaining his innocence, he has appealed the verdict.

Parallel Judgment

Godbey referred to the jury's guilty finding in granting the SEC's request he render a parallel judgment in their case filed in February 2009, four months before the financier was indicted. The judge also cited the August 2009 guilty plea by Stanford Group Chief Financial Officer James Davis.

"The court finds that $5.9 billion is a reasonable approximation of the gains connected to Stanford's fraud," Godbey said of the sum he would order disgorged. He then added more than $861 million in interest for a total of $6.76 billion. Davis too is jointly liable.

Finally the judge imposed a $5.9 billion penalty on Stanford and a $5 million assessment against Davis, who received a five-year prison sentence.

The court-appointed receiver, Ralph Janvey, asked Godbey this month for permission to begin repaying some of the losses incurred by the more than 17,000 claimants. At an April 11 hearing, the judge told Janvey's lawyer, Kevin Sadler, he was concerned about doing so before a final order had been entered against Stanford.

Societe Generale

In a separate filing today, a group of Stanford investors asked Godbey to grant them a judgment of at least $95 million in a lawsuit against a unit of Paris-based Societe Generale SA. (GLE)

The lender's Societe Generale Private Banking (Suisse) unit took the money from a Stanford bank account with his permission in December 2008 to repay a loan made to him four years earlier, according to court papers.

The financier had caused a business funded by Stanford investor-depositor money to guarantee the loan in 2007, the investors alleged, while those depositors received no benefit. The transfer of that money to Societe Generale just two months before the SEC sued Stanford and shut down his businesses was a fraudulent transfer, the investors claimed in today's filing.

Ken Hagan and Jim Galvin, New York-based spokesman for the French bank, did not immediately reply to voicemail messages seeking comment on the allegations.

Slush Fund

Davis, the CFO, testified at Stanford's trial that the financier maintained a Societe Generale Swiss bank account, funded by investor deposits.

"It was a slush fund, just used for whatever the holder wanted to use it for," Davis said during the Houston federal court trial in February 2012.

The SEC case is Securities and Exchange Commission v. Stanford International Bank, 09-cv-00298, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas (Dallas). The criminal case is U.S. v. Stanford, 09-cr-00342, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas (Houston).

The investors' case is Rotstain v. Trustmark National Bank, 09-cv-02384, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas (Dallas).

To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Harris in the Chicago federal courthouse at aharris16@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net

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KRCL Stanford Ponzi Scheme Litigation Update

By David M. Clem

It has been more than four years since the District Court for the Northern District of Texas appointed Ralph Janvey as Receiver for the Stanford Entities-shutting down what the SEC alleged to be a $7 billion Ponzi scheme. In that time, R. Allen Stanford and some of his associates have been tried and convicted in criminal courts, while hundreds of civil lawsuits continue to creep forward. Most of the civil suits are consolidated for pretrial purposes into MDL 2099, in the Northern District of Texas. This litigation alert will briefly address the criminal convictions, followed by an update on the SLUSA appeal that KRCL wrote about in April.[1] Lastly, this alert will report on some of the new complaints filed by the Receiver and the Official Stanford Investors Committee in February.

The Criminal Trials

On June 14, 2012, Judge Hittner of the Southern District of Texas sentenced R. Allen Stanford to 110 years in federal prison for various counts of fraud, conspiracy, and obstruction. The court also imposed a $5.9 billion judgment against Stanford individually. Stanford has appealed the conviction to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Stanford's conviction and judgment followed a six-week trial at which his former chief financial officer, James Davis, testified against Stanford as part of a plea agreement. The court sentenced James Davis to five years in prison and imposed a $1 billion money judgment.

Laura Pendergest-Holt, Stanford's former chief investment officer, plead guilty to obstruction and received a sentence of 36 months in prison and no monetary judgment.

On February 14, 2013, the court sentenced Gilbert Lopez, Stanford's former chief accounting officer, and Mark Kuhrt, the former controller, to 20 years in prison. These defendants have signaled their intentions to appeal.

The Lopez and Kuhrt sentences bring an end to the criminal trial proceedings, other than those related to Leroy King, an Antiguan banking regulator whom prosecutors are attempting to extradite to the United States for trial.

The SLUSA Appeal

As we have previously written, the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998 ("SLUSA") prohibits state-based securities class actions if the claims allege "a misrepresentation or omission of a material fact in connection with the purchase of a covered security." Judge Godbey in the Northern District of Texas previously ruled that the plaintiffs' claims, which related to CDs issued by Stanford International Bank, were sufficiently related to "covered securities" to warrant SLUSA preemption.

On appeal, the Fifth Circuit reversed the district court, holding that SLUSA preemption does not apply and breathing life back into the plaintiffs' claims.

Last month, the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the SLUSA issue.[2] The Supreme Court granted certiorari in spite of opposition from the Solicitor General, who wrote in an amicus brief that the facts presented are too peculiar to provide any assistance to lower courts that may later face SLUSA preemption issues.

The Supreme Court will hear oral argument in the October 2013 Term. If the high court reverses the Fifth Circuit, the plaintiffs' claims that are based on state law securities violations will be dismissed, significantly diminishing the plaintiffs' ability to recover against financial services defendants.

The February 15 Lawsuits

The Official Stanford Investors Committee is a court-appointed group consisting of seven members that purportedly represent a "cross-section of the Stanford victims' community." The Receiver assigned certain of its claims to the Committee, which has brought suits in its own name and has also intervened in some lawsuits.

Despite the uncertainty created by the pending SLUSA appeal, the Committee has recently increased its litigation activity. On February 15, 2013, the Committee filed three complaints with the MDL Court-a complaint in intervention and two original complaints.

The Committee filed the complaint in intervention in Rotstain v. Trustmark National Bank, HSBC Bank PLC, The Toronto-Dominion Bank, and Bank of Houston, No. 3:09-cv-2384. Rotstain is a purported class action brought by victims of Stanford's purported Ponzi scheme. The Receiver and the Committee had previously intervened, but had not alleged claims directly against the defendant banks until this filing. The Committee alleges various claims related to fraudulent transfers, conversion, and conspiracy. The Committee also seeks punitive damages for the banks' alleged participation or abetting of Stanford's fraudulent scheme.

On the same day, the Committee filed an original complaint styled The Official Stanford Investors Committee v. Bank of Antigua, et al., No. 3:13-cv-0762. In this action, the Committee seeks recovery from eight foreign banks for claims similar to those alleged in the Rotstain matter. The Committee alleges that the Antiguan government and its monetary regulator, the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, were complicit in and integral to Stanford's fraud. According to the complaint, the Antiguan government's seizure of the Bank of Antigua (a Stanford-controlled entity) resulted in the dissemination of Stanford assets to various Caribbean-based banks. The Committee seeks to recover these assets, alleged to be in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, under theories of fraudulent transfer and conversion.

In addition, the Committee filed suit directly against the nation of Antigua and Barbuda, in a case styled The Official Stanford Investors Committee v. Antigua and Barbuda, No. 3:13-cv-0760. In this Complaint, the Committee levies its most serious accusations against the Antiguan government, alleging that the country "became a 'blood brother' to Stanford" and that key government officials "were literally Stanford's partners in crime." By this action, the Committee seeks to recover almost one hundred million dollars in unpaid loans made by Stanford to the government of Antigua and Barbuda.

The Receiver also filed a new lawsuit on February 15, 2013. In Janvey v. Pablo M. Alvarado, et al., No. 3:13-cv-0775, the Receiver seeks to recover from 23 former directors and officers of various Stanford entities for breach of fiduciary duty. The suit essentially alleges that the directors and officers either knew of the fraud or facilitated the fraud by ignoring numerous "red flags." Laura Pendergest-Holt, Mark Kuhrt, and Gilberto Lopez are among the defendants.

KRCL will continue to monitor the Stanford litigation closely.

[1] The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Revives Securities Fraud Claims in Stanford Entities Securities Litigation
[2]The consolidated cases are Chadbourne & Park LLP v. Troice, No. 12-79; Willis of Colorado, Inc. v. Troice, No. 12-86; and Proskauer Rose LLP v. Troice, No. 12-88.

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