Stanford 20/20 for 20: Reliving Embarrassing Moment in England's Cricket History

BY FREDDIE WILDE (FEATURED COLUMNIST) ON OCTOBER 31, 2013

Five years ago today, a Kevin Pietersen-led England played against a team called the "Stanford Superstars," which was made up of West Indian cricketers in a Twenty20 match in which the winners would pocket $20 million.

The extravaganza was funded by Allen Stanford, a multi-millionaire who lived in the Caribbean. 

The match was intended to be the first of five—one played annually—but when Stanford was arrested for fraud and sentenced to 110 years in prison, the ECB terminated their contract with the financier and the tournament was consigned to the annals of history. 

Five years on from one of the most embarrassing sagas in English cricket history, B/R takes a look back at the whole gruesome escapade. 

The ECB were keen to enter in a deal with Stanford to help find a solution to the growing problem of the Indian Premier League. 

The T20 league in India offered English players unparalleled riches, and the ECB were concerned about losing control of their players during the six-week tournament that clashed with the beginning of the English season.

The Stanford Super Series therefore posed a handy alternative that offered England's players the opportunity to earn significant sums of money in an ECB-endorsed tournament that could be played at a time in the calendar in which there were few schedule clashes. 

In light of what happened later, with Stanford's arrest, his gratuitous welcome onto the Nursery Ground with his helicopter at Lord's, the Home of Cricket, was cringeworthy and embarrassing.  

Flanked by ECB chairman Giles Clarke and West Indian cricket legend Sir Gary Sobers, Stanford prowled around the Lord's Nursery Ground. 

He had been involved in West Indian cricket before the launch of the Stanford Super Series—running the domestic T20 tournament in the Caribbean and putting together a group of "legends" to endorse his project. 

West Indian cricket has a rich heritage. The fact that legends such as Sobers and Sir Viv Richards were drawn into the whole facade is a huge shame.  

Perhaps the most enduring image of the saga will be Stanford flanked by cricketing head-honchos and former players, standing tall, and beaming behind a glass box of $20 million. Whether the money was even real is unknown, in the light of the fraud scandal, but it was a grotesque show of wealth and power. 

Stephen Brenkley, writing prior to the tournament in The Independent, was prescient in his assessment of the series:

Of all the short-form matches currently being organised, the conclusion is easily reached that Stanford Superstars v England is the most offensive. It has no context as a proper sporting competition, it is neither country versus country, club versus club or invitation XI versus invitation XI. It is a rococo hybrid. It has money but nothing else going for it. 

When the series eventually got underway, the walking, talking disaster continued. 

The pitches were poor, the cricket was shoddy and the show was horribly stage-managed. Cricket was Stanford's toy and he was enjoying playing with it. 

Perhaps the most embarrassing moment of the tournament was when Emily Prior—wife of England wicket keeper Matt Prior—was seen bouncing on the knee of Stanford. who looked like the cat who had got the cream. 

To top the whole thing off, England lost the $20 million match, thus taking home nothing and rendering the initial point of getting involved unfulfilled. 

It wasn't even a close match, with the Stanford Superstars romping home by 10 wickets. England looked disenchanted, fed up and wholly unimpressed with the occasion. And who could blame them? 

The Stanford Saga should be remembered as one of the most embarrassing moments in cricket history, and an accurate reflection of an era dictated to by money and greed. 

Source article: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1832090-stanford-2020-for-20-reliving-embarrassing-moment-in-englands-cricket-history

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

$83.5M Suit Says Willis Group Aided Stanford Fraud

A group of holders of Stanford Financial Group CD accounts claims that Willis Group Holdings Public Limited Co. helped perpetuate Robert Allen Stanford's $7 billion Ponzi scheme, according to an $83.5 million class action removed from Florida state court Monday.

The plaintiffs, 64 citizens of El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, the United States and Spain who claim combined losses of more than $83.5 million, say that when they made their investments in Stanford Financial CDs, they relied on "safety and soundness" letters issued by Willis asserting that Stanford International Bank and its products were protected by certain insurance policies and were highly liquid.

"In fact, the Stanford Financial CDs were not CDs at all, but unregistered, unregulated securities sold illegally from Stanford Financial's home base in the United States," the plaintiffs say in their complaint. "These investments had no insurance and were fraught with risk."

The case is not the first to lay such accusations against Willis. In 2009, a class of between 1,200 and 5,000 Venezuelan clients sought $1.6 billion over claims they were allegedly lured into the scheme by the insurance brokers' assurance that Stanford CDs were sound, insured investments. And in another suit that year, Mexican investors implicated Willis, claiming the defendants contributed to a fraud that cost them roughly $1 billion.

Stanford was sentenced in June 2012 to 110 years in prison after being convicted on charges he misappropriated billions of dollars in investor funds, including some $1.6 billion he allegedly moved to a personal account. His $7 billion Ponzi scheme was second only to Bernie Madoff's record-setting scam.

From about August 2004 through 2008, Willis provided Stanford Financial with an undated form letter that said Willis was the insurance broker for Stanford International Bank and had placed directors and officers liability insurance and a bankers blanket bond with Lloyds of London, according to the current complaint.

The letters played a crucial role in Stanford's fraud because Stanford Finanical was an offshore bank and thus not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Willis' letters helped Stanford get around that obstacle by claiming the CDs "were even safer than U.S. Bank-issued CDs because of the unique insurance policies Willis had obtained," the complaint says.

"The Willis letters were specifically designed to win investors' trust and confidence in Stanford Financial's fraudulent scheme," the plaintiffs say in their complaint, noting that for investors with more than $1 million in their accounts, Stanford Financial advisors could get personally addressed letters from Willis.

"Willis' message to potential investors was this: Trust us, you can invest with confidence and security in Stanford Financial CDs," they add.

All of the plaintiffs in the current case made their purchases through Stanford Financial's Miami office, which the complaint says accounted for more than $1 billion in CD sales.

Willis of Colorado Inc. filed the notice of removal of the class action on the grounds of diversity between plaintiffs and defendants, of the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998 and that the Northern District of Texas has exclusive jurisdiction in Stanford receivership cases.

The notice of removal also claims that defendants Willis Group Holdings Public Limited Co. and Willis Ltd., which are based in Ireland and the United Kingdom, respectively, have been fraudulently joined in an effort to defeat diversity jurisdiction. It says that the plaintiffs' claims are on letters issued only by the subsidiary Willis of Colorado and "no reasonable possibility" exists of the plaintiffs recovering damages from the other entities.

Counsel for both sides could not be reached for comment late Tuesday.

The plaintiffs are represented by Luis Delgado and Christopher King of Homer & Bonner PA and Ervin Gonzalez of Colson Hicks Eidson PA.

Willis is represented by Edward Soto of Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP.

The case is Nuila de Gadala-Maria et al. v. Willis Group Holdings Public Limited Co., case number 1:13-cv-21989, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Read the Willis Group NOTICE OF REMOVAL.

Read the Willis Group Exhibit A.

Read more: http://sivg.org/article/2013_64_victims_Say_Willis_Group_Aided_Stanford_Fraud.html

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

SEC Charges Traders in Massive Kickback Scheme Involving Venezuelan Official

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged four individuals with ties to a New York City brokerage firm in a scheme involving millions of dollars in illicit bribes paid to a high-ranking Venezuelan finance official to secure the bond trading business of a state-owned Venezuelan bank.

According to the SEC's complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, the global markets group at broker-dealer Direct Access Partners (DAP) executed fixed income trades for customers in foreign sovereign debt. DAP Global generated more than $66 million in revenue for DAP from transaction fees - in the form of markups and markdowns - on riskless principal trade executions in Venezuelan sovereign or state-sponsored bonds for Banco de Desarrollo Económico y Social de Venezuela (BANDES). A portion of this revenue was illicitly paid to BANDES Vice President of Finance, María de los Ángeles González de Hernandez, who authorized the fraudulent trades.

"These traders triggered a fraud that was staggering in audacity and scope," said Andrew M. Calamari, Director of the SEC's New York Regional Office. "They thought they covered their tracks by using offshore accounts and a shadow accounting system to monitor their illicit profits and bribes, but they underestimated the SEC's tenacity in piecing the scheme together."

The SEC's complaint charges the following individuals for the roles in the kickback scheme:

.- Tomas Alberto Clarke Bethancourt, who lives in Miami and is an executive vice president at DAP. Known as "Tomas Clarke," he was responsible for executing the fraudulent trades and maintaining spreadsheets tracking the illicit markups and markdowns on those trades.
.- Iuri Rodolfo Bethancourt, who lives in Panama and received more than $20 million in fraudulent proceeds from DAP via his Panamanian shell company, which then paid Gonzalez a portion of this amount.
.- Jose Alejandro Hurtado, who lives in Miami and served as the intermediary between DAP and Gonzalez. Hurtado was paid more than $6 million in kickbacks disguised as salary payments from DAP, and he remitted some of that money to Gonzalez.
.- Haydee Leticia Pabon, who is Hurtado's wife and received approximately $8 million in markups or markdowns on BANDES trades that were funneled to her from DAP in the form of sham finders' fees.

In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced criminal charges against Gonzalez as well as Clarke and Hurtado.

According to the SEC's complaint, the scheme began in October 2008 and continued until at least June 2010. BANDES was a new customer to DAP brought in by DAP Global executives through their connections to Hurtado. As a result of the kickbacks to Gonzalez, DAP obtained BANDES' lucrative trading business and provided Gonzalez with the incentive to enter into trades with DAP at considerable markups or markdowns without regard to the prices paid by BANDES. Gonzalez used her senior role at the Caracas-based bank to ensure that its bond trades would continue to be steered to DAP. As the scheme evolved over time, the traders deceived DAP's clearing brokers, executed internal wash trades, inter-positioned another broker-dealer in the trades to conceal their role in the transactions, and engaged in massive roundtrip trades to pad their revenue.

For example, the SEC alleges that in January 2010, the traders and Gonzalez arranged for two fraudulent roundtrip trades with BANDES as both buyer and seller. These trades - which lacked any legitimate business purpose - caused BANDES to pay DAP more than $10 million in fees, a portion of which was diverted to Gonzalez for authorizing the blatantly fraudulent trades.

The SEC further alleges that, giving rise to the adage of no honor among thieves, Clarke and Hurtado frequently falsified the size of DAP's fees in their reports to Gonzalez, which enabled the traders to retain a greater share of the fraudulent profits.

The SEC's complaint charges Clarke, Bethancourt, Hurtado, and Pabon with fraud and seeks final judgments that would require them to return ill-gotten gains with interest and pay financial penalties.

The SEC's investigation, which is continuing, was conducted by Wendy Tepperman, Amanda Straub, and Michael Osnato of the New York Regional Office. The SEC's litigation will be led by Howard Fischer. An SEC examination of DAP that that led to the investigation was conducted by members of the New York office's broker-dealer examination staff. The SEC appreciates the assistance of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Fort Worth SEC staff have been criticized in report on Stanford. The Securities and Exchange Commission made public the failure of enforcement staff in Fort Worth to act on findings by SEC examiners, who inspect the health of banks and other financial companies of Stanford.

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

SDC workers picket over non-payment of wages

ST JOHN’S, Antigua – There’s very little end in sight for unpaid striking workers of Stanford Development Company (SDC) as neither SDC’s former directors nor the liquidators of Allen Stanford’s empire in Antigua are able to say when they will receive their monies.

      The 65 workers reported they have not received wages and salaries since January 15. They said their former bosses, Barbara Streete and Andrea Stoelker, can no longer pay staff since a court ruled the two were not properly appointed as directors of the company.

      The duo had appealed the ruling and applied for a stay of execution (a hold on enforcement of the judgment). The appeal is set for a date two months from now, but the application for a stay was recently rejected, workers confirmed.

      Staff had hoped the liquidators of most of Stanford’s assets here could help, but liquidator of Stanford International Bank (SIB) Marcus Wide told OBSERVER media last night he can offer no relief.

      “As of now we have no authority over SDC and while we are very sympathetic to their situation, regretfully, we cannot assist the employees,” Wide said.

      Wide said SIB was not responsible for the removal of the directors or freezing of their bank accounts.

      Up to yesterday, Wide said he was unaware the workers had not been paid since January and further that they had begun protesting.

      Affected workers are car park attendants, landscapers, maintenance crew and security at SDC properties.

      Efforts to reach the former directors were unsuccessful.

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

Report Exposes Secrets of Off-Shore Tax Havens

The off-shore tax havens of least 30 Americans accused of fraud, money laundering or other financial crimes have been unearthed in a groundbreaking report by The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and a global consortium of news outlets.

The first articles based on a cache of 2.5 million files were published Thursday, exposing secrets of more than 120,000 offshore entities -- including shell corporations and legal structures known as trusts -- used to hide the finances of politicians, crooks and others from more than 170 nations.

These havens are harboring an enormous amount of money. One study estimated the total could be as high as $32 trillion. That's roughly the size of the U.S. and Japanese economies combined.

The documents give a first-ever look at how agents for giant private banks would incorporate companies in Caribbean and South Pacific micro-states. These companies would then have front people called "nominees" to serve, on paper, as directors and shareholders -- creating another layer of secrecy and protection for the companies' real owners.

The ICIJ's review of documents from just one company which sets up off-short companies and trusts, Singapore-based Portcullis TrustNet, identified 30 American clients who are in legal trouble for their financial dealings. According to the ICIJ, these include Paul Bilzerian, a corporate raider who was convicted of tax fraud and securities violations in 1989, and Raj Rajaratnam, a billionaire hedge fund manager who began serving an 11-year prison sentence in January for his role in one of the biggest insider trading scandals in U.S. history.

The documents also reveal detailed information about the financial dealings of array of notorious people and companies including international arms dealers, smugglers and a company the European Union says is a front for Iran's nuclear-development program. Records have also been found on:

-- Maria Imelda Marcos Manotoc, daughter of the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Following the release of the data, Philippine officials said they hope to learn if any of the money now held by Manotoc is part of the estimated $5 billion her father amassed through corruption.
-- Individuals and companies who stole $230 million from Russia's treasury in a case which strained U.S.-Russia relations and led to a ban on Americans adopting Russian orphans.
-- A Venezuelan man accused of using offshore companies to fund a U.S.-based Ponzi scheme and spending millions of dollars to bribe a Venezuelan government official.
-- A corporate mogul who got billions of dollars in contracts from the government of Azerbaijan while serving as a director of offshore companies owned by the Azerbaijani president's daughters.

The ICIJ and 86 investigative journalists worked for more than a year to make sense of the cache of 2.5 million files. The reporters came from new outlets in 46 countries, including The Guardian and the BBC in the U.K., Le Monde in France, Süddeutsche Zeitungand Norddeutscher Rundfunk in Germany, The Washington Post, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and 31 other media partners around the world.

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

KLS - Stanford Update March 2013

March 14, 2013
By KACHROO LEGAL SERVICES, P.C.
In our last update, we notified you that the magistrate judge in our SEC class action denied the Government's request to stay all discovery. We are summarizing here the outcome of the discovery hearing which was held in Miami on February 14, 2013. One of the key hurdles to overcome in an action against the Government is the discretionary function exception. The magistrate made clear that this hurdle has been overcome and the court had already ruled on the sovereign immunity issue. The magistrate also held that "it is not obvious that [the Government's second motion to dismiss] will succeed." A copy of this ruling is attached for your review. Following this ruling, we have moved forward with discovery and we continue to wait for the district court to rule on the Government's second motion to dismiss.

In view of the delays caused by the Government's motion to stay discovery, we requested that the Court push back certain pre-trial and trial deadlines to allow us adequate time to pursue the discovery required to prove our case. We are happy to report that the Court granted our request and pushed back discovery deadlines to afford us this opportunity, which also resulted in a new trial date set for April 7, 2014.

In accordance with the foregoing and the undersigned's rulings in open Court, it is ORDERED and ADJUDGED as follows:
1.- The Motion to Stay Discovery [D.E. 50] is DENIED.

2.- The Motion to Compel [D.E. 51] is DENIED WITHOUT PREJUDICE as to Request No. 1 and Interrogatory No. 6 based on Defendant's agreement to supply the names and contact information of the SEC Fort Worth District Office staff members in response to Interrogatory No. 1. Such information is hereby designated as "CONFIDENTIAL, FOR ATTORNEYS' EYES ONLY", and shall be provided to Plaintiff's counsel by February 19, 2013.

3.- The Motion to Compel [D.E. 51] is DENIED WITHOUT PREJUDICE as to Request Nos. 2, 13-16 and Interrogatory Nos. 1-5, 7-8 subject to the following terms. Plaintiffs may notice a Rule 30(b)(6) deposition of the SEC, designating as categories the information sought in their discovery requestes, but narrowed in terms of time, entity and scope as more fully explained at the February 14, 2013 hearing. Within one week of receipt of the Rule 30(b)(6) Notice of Deposition, Defendant may submit a letter to the undersigned setting forth any objections to the designated categories at the undersigned's e-file address, otazo-reyes@flsd.uscourts.gov. Plaintiffs may respond to any such objections, by the same means, within one week. Thereafter, the undersigned will rule on the objections or, if necessary, set a telephonic hearing to address them. The parties' letters will be appended to the Order on the objections.
The Rule 30(b)(6) deposition of the SEC shall be scheduled on a date that is mutually agreeable to the parties, and at a time when the undersigned will be available to rule on any disputes that may arise regarding its scope. To this end, counsel may contact Chambers to coordinate the deposition date. Further, the parties may submit a proposed confidentiality order prior to the deposition.

To read the Zelaya Order on Motion to Stay and Motion to Compel: http://sivg.org/article/2013_KLS_Stanford_Update_SEC_Litigation.html

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

SEC, SIPC to argue in court over Stanford claims

Securities regulators are due in court on Tuesday to argue that a brokerage industry-backed protection fund should let thousands of victims of Allen Stanford's alleged Ponzi scheme file claims for compensation.
The Securities Investor Protection Corp, which has handled liquidation proceedings for Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme and the MF Global failure, has said the 40-year-old Securities Investor Protection law does not apply in the Stanford case.
The unprecedented legal face-off between SIPC and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission could have far-reaching consequences for how investors are compensated if their brokerage firm fails.
Stanford, 61, was arrested in 2009 over charges that he ran a $7.2 billion Ponzi scheme linked to certificates of deposit issued by his Antigua-based bank.
Tuesday's hearing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia will come just a day after Stanford's criminal trial gets under way in another federal court in Texas.
The SEC asked the District of Columbia court in December to uphold its authority to order SIPC to help Stanford's victims after negotiations between the two entities had failed. It is unclear how soon Judge Robert Wilkins could rule.
SIPC is standing by its decision not to intervene on behalf of Stanford investors and has created a website to explain its position at http://www.stanford-antigua-sec-lawsuit.com/
It argues that it is limited by law to protecting customers against the loss of missing cash or securities in the custody of failing or insolvent SIPC-member brokerage firms.
While Stanford's Texas-based brokerage was a SIPC member, its offshore bank was not. And in any case, SIPC says it was not chartered by Congress to combat fraud or guarantee an investment's value.
"I think as a general policy matter, SIPC probably should win," said Seton Hall University School of Law professor Stephen Lubben. "If they don't, we are turning this insurance fund... into basically fraud protection across the board in all kinds of investments, which is going to be a lot more expensive."
Initially, some staff at the SEC seemed to agree with SIPC's view.
Former SEC General Counsel David Becker is quoted in a report released in September as saying "the law is the law" and that Stanford victims did not qualify.
Then in June, just one day after Senator David Vitter threatened to block the nominations of two SEC commissioners until the agency made a decision on Stanford claims, it announced that it was siding with the victims.
In a 195-page document, the SEC said that for SIPC to conclude that these customers did not actually deposit cash with Stanford Group "would elevate form over substance by honoring a corporate structure designed by Stanford in order to perpetrate an egregious fraud."
The timing of the SEC's announcement has raised some eyebrows at SIPC.
But Angela Shaw, the founder and director of the Stanford Victims Coalition, said the SEC's decision was not based on politics. It came, she said, after she turned over thousands of documents that helped convince the agency that investor money never went to the bank, but was instead spent by the brokerage.
"We have a broker-dealer that was a SIPC member that stole customers' funds," she said. "SIPC covers theft of investor funds when they are stolen by the broker-dealer, and the SEC has not alleged that this foreign bank stole our money."
TECHNICAL ARGUMENTS
It is not clear whether Tuesday's hearing will explore the merits of the arguments for or against SIPC coverage for Stanford investors.
The SEC, which has oversight authority over SIPC, plans to tell the judge that its position is "not subject to judicial review." It wants the court to simply weigh whether it has met the requirements to compel SIPC to launch a liquidation proceeding.
Stephen Harbeck, president and CEO of SIPC, rejects that argument entirely.
"I think it is fair to say that the SEC's position is as follows: The court may not look at the facts, the court may not look at the law, SIPC may not present any counter-argument, there is no appeal, and the court must do as we say," he said. "I am unaware of any jurisprudence that allows that."

SEC spokesman John Nester said Harbeck "apparently misunderstands our position, which is based on the facts and the law."

Read more: http://sivg.org/forum/view_topic.php?t=eng&id=90

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