Stanford Victim Penny-a-Dollar Payment Plan Goes to Judge

R. Allen Stanford’s investors may recoup some of their losses more than four years after the Stanford Group Co. founder was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and put out of business.
Ralph Janvey, the receiver appointed by a federal judge in 2009 to marshal and liquidate Stanford’s personal and business assets, today asked permission to make a $55 million interim distribution to about 17,000 claimants, or about 1 cent for each of the $5.1 billion lost in the fraud scheme.
“We will follow it up in a subsequent distribution as the money comes in,” Janvey’s attorney, Kevin Sadler of Baker Botts LLP, told U.S. District Judge David Godbey today in Dallas.
The proposed payout would trail the more than $5.4 billion paid to victims of Bernard L. Madoff, who was arrested in December 2008; about $4.9 billion paid clients of the MF Global Inc. brokerage after its parent MF Global Holdings Ltd. failed in October 2011; and the $123 million interim distribution for victims of Peregrine Financial Group Inc. founder Russell Wasendorf, who prosecutors last year said stole $215 million.
“No distribution plan can satisfy every claimant,” Janvey’s lawyers said in a Feb. 12 court filing. “But the receiver’s interim plan, which drew only three objections from thousands of claimants, comes remarkably close.”
Cross-Border Protocol
Godbey didn’t rule today on Janvey’s bid for payment plan approval. The judge granted a request to approve the Cross- Border Protocol, a cooperation agreement between the Dallas court-appointed receivership and U.S. authorities on one side, and Antiguan court-appointed liquidators of Stanford assets outside the U.S. on the other. That approval could boost investors’ final recovery.
“The court finds the motion to be well-taken,” Godbey said in a two-page order. He heard more than two hours of argument this morning.
A federal jury in Houston last year found Stanford, 63, guilty of lying to investors about the nature and oversight of certificates of deposit issued by his Antigua-based bank. The jurors decided he must forfeit $330 million in accounts seized by the U.S. government.
Sentenced to 110 years in federal prison, Stanford has appealed the verdict.
Godbey today asked Sadler whether it was proper to distribute Stanford’s money before entering a final order in the SEC case against the financier and his businesses.
No Precedent
No legal precedent requires Godbey to first issue such a ruling, Janvey’s lawyer replied. He also told the judge that in a prior decision he said “not a nickel” of the money recovered by the receiver from Stanford entities was not taken by fraud.
One objection to the payout plan came from the law firm Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP. A lawyer for the firm, Myles Bartley, told the judge today that it’s owed $1.4 million for work done for Stanford entities and isn’t included in the first group of distributions.
Sadler said there would be enough funds to resolve those claims even if the judge approved the proposed payment plan.
In an e-mailed statement, Sadler called the judge’s ruling today “a significant milestone” in the receivership’s effort to get money to Stanford fraud victims.
Godbey’s order requires the Janvey receivership and the Antiguan liquidators to “perform in accordance with their rights and obligations as outlined in the settlement agreement.”
Long Dispute
Lawyers for both factions battled for months for control of $300 million of Stanford assets outside the U.S.
“So long as it continues, millions of dollars in assets that could otherwise be distributed to victims of the Stanford Ponzi scheme will remain tied up in the courts,” Sadler told Godbey in a filing last month.
The liquidators, Grant Thornton International Ltd. accountants Hugh Dickson and Marcus Wide, joined in the approval request through a separate filing.
For dropping their dispute with Janvey and the U.S. Justice Department, the Antiguan liquidators will receive fees of $36 million from Stanford’s frozen funds in the U.K., according to a statement jointly released by both receivers on March 12. The Antiguan liquidators already have received $20 million from the U.K. accounts.
About $23 million in Canadian funds and $132.5 million in Swiss funds will be transferred to the Justice Department and Janvey for distribution to investors through a system the U.S. receiver is establishing, according to the joint statement.
‘Ransom’ Payment
Angie Shaw, a founder of the Stanford Victims Coalition, has denounced the agreement as “ransom” that rewards the Antiguan liquidators at the investors’ expense.
“There is no Plan B,” Sadler told the judge.
Edward H. Davis Jr., an attorney for the liquidators, told Godbey today that an Antiguan court approved the agreement this week.
He said the agreement funds a “war chest” for the liquidators to further pursue lawsuits.
“The Joint Liquidators are pleased to have obtained the approval of the settlement from the High Court in Antigua this past Monday,” Davis said today in an e-mailed statement.
Attorneys representing law firms already defending suits filed by Janvey in the U.S. objected to the accord, arguing that it would result in more litigation offshore.
“There is obviously a jurisdictional issue,” Godbey said. “There is no getting around it.”
Fees Paid
Janvey’s professionals had been paid $63.3 million in fees and expenses as of Feb. 7, according to his most recent status report. That represents about a quarter of the $230.2 million Janvey has recovered for the estate. He has paid out $53.3 million more in costs to wind up Stanford’s business interests.
Shaw couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on Godbey’s ruling this afternoon. Peter Morgenstern, an attorney who serves on the official Stanford Investors Committee, also didn’t immediately reply to voice-mail and e-mail requests for comment.
An additional $4.1 million in Stanford-related assets have been identified in an account held by Pershing LLC, according to a court filing by Sadler yesterday seeking an order for the turnover of those funds.
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).

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Stanford U.S. Receiver Has Deal With Antigua Counterpart

R. Allen Stanford’s Antiguan- appointed liquidators agreed to stop seeking control of the convicted financier’s assets in a deal that may allow defrauded investors to recover some of the $300 million Stanford stashed in accounts outside the U.S.
Receivers appointed by the U.S. and the Antiguan courts have battled for four years to control assets recovered from Stanford’s financial-services empire. Stanford, 62, was convicted last March of leading a $7 billion investment fraud based on bogus certificates of deposit at his Antigua-based bank. He was sentenced to 110 years in prison.
“The funds that are the subject of this agreement represent the largest available source of investor money that Allen Stanford had not already spent by the time his Ponzi scheme collapsed,” Kevin Sadler, lead attorney for U.S. receiver Ralph Janvey, said in an e-mail today. “In the absence of this agreement, these funds would remain out of reach of the Stanford victims for years to come.”
For dropping their dispute with Janvey and the U.S. Justice Department, the Antiguan liquidators will receive fees of $36 million from Stanford’s frozen funds in the U.K., according to a statement jointly released by both receivers today.

Professional Fees

The Antiguan liquidators have already received $20 million from the U.K. accounts, so the additional payment will boost their professional fees to $56 million -- almost as much as Janvey’s receivership team has been paid since U.S. securities regulators seized Stanford’s operations in February 2009.
Janvey’s professionals had been paid $63.3 million in fees and expenses as of Feb. 7, according to his latest status report. That represents about a quarter of the $230.2 million Janvey has recovered for the estate. He has paid out an additional $53.3 million in costs to wind up Stanford’s business interests.
Janvey recently proposed a $50 million interim distribution be paid to investors, pending court approval.
Angie Shaw, a founder of the Stanford Victims Coalition, denounced the agreement as “ransom” that rewards the Antiguan liquidators at the investors’ expense.
“While the agreement does end a four-year international turf war that has cost the victims untold millions of dollars, the only true beneficiary of the agreement is the Antiguan liquidators,” Shaw said in an e-mail today. “The Antiguan liquidators are essentially getting a ransom fee in exchange for dropping their litigation for control over the frozen foreign accounts holding what is left of the victims’ life savings.”

Dallas Judge

While Janvey was awarded control over all Stanford assets by the Dallas judge in charge of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission case against Stanford, courts in the U.K., Switzerland and Canada initially awarded control of about $320 million in foreign accounts to Antiguan court-appointed liquidators Marcus Wide and Hugh Dickson of Grant Thornton.
The Justice Department placed an administrative hold on the European funds, and it has been trying to repatriate the money since Stanford and his co-conspirators were convicted last year.
The Antiguan liquidators have fought to retain control and have filed some asset-recovery lawsuits that duplicate actions already initiated by Janvey, according to court filings. Wide and Dickson haven’t publicly stated how much they’ve been able to recover for Stanford’s investors.

Stanford Victims

Edward H. Davis Jr., one of the Antiguan liquidators’ attorneys, said in an e-mail today that Dickson and Wide have already recovered and frozen more than $227 million in Stanford assets “independent of the amounts recovered by Janvey and in addition to the approximately $300 million frozen” in overseas accounts.
“The joint liquidators have conducted intensive investigations and lodged claims and are in the process of launching additional lawsuits that have the potential to yield billions of dollars in recoveries to pay the victim creditors,” Davis said. “To suggest that the joint liquidators held the estate for ransom demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding about how a liquidation process maximizes recoveries for victim creditors.”
Peter Morgenstern, a lawyer who sits on the Official Stanford Investors Committee, said the investors should be allowed to decide whether the Antiguan liquidators receive more fees or whether the U.S. government should continue fighting to recover Stanford’s frozen European funds through international accords designed to recover criminal proceeds.

‘Significant Assets’

“The issue is how significant assets recovered by the U.S. government for the benefit of Stanford victims should be spent,” Morgenstern said in an e-mail. Much as creditors have a say in how bankruptcy proceeds are distributed, he said, the defrauded investors should also be consulted before such a large part of the estate is paid in professional fees.
Janvey has asked U.S. District Judge David Godbey in Dallas to hold a hearing at which investors can express their opinions of the deal. No hearing has been set.
Under terms of the agreement announced today, the Antiguan liquidators will distribute the $44 million remaining in the U.K. accounts to investors after the liquidators have received their $36 million in working capital. Wide and Dickson will also distribute about $60.5 million of the funds currently frozen in Switzerland, according to the joint statement.

Fund Transfers

About $23 million in Canadian funds and $132.5 million in Swiss funds will be transferred to the Justice Department and Janvey for distribution to investors through a system the U.S. receiver is establishing, according to the joint statement.
The agreement “creates a plan for the distribution of almost 90 percent of the frozen assets from the U.K., Canada and Switzerland pursuant to which distributions will be made as soon as the necessary approvals are obtained from the pertinent authorities in those countries,” the Antiguan liquidators said in the joint statement.
Courts in the U.S., Antigua and the U.K. must still sign off on the deal before any funds are transferred, according to the statement.
Sadler, the U.S. receiver’s attorney, said the deal was the result of months of negotiations involving officials in five nations.
“This agreement is one of the most complex undertakings of its kind,” he said in an e-mail. “This was no easy task.”
The criminal case is U.S. v. Stanford, 09-cr-00342, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas (Houston). The SEC case is Securities and Exchange Commission v. Stanford International Bank, 09-cv-00298, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas (Dallas).

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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."

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