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The Stanford Saga – Chapter 5: The Liquidators Strike Back

The Stanford Saga – Chapter 5: The Liquidators Strike Back

Nearly two weeks ago, this blog highlighted further scuffling in the ongoing contest for administrative control between Ralph Janvey – a federal receiver appointed at the SEC’s behest to seize and administer financial assets once controlled by Sir Allen Stanford, and Peter Wastell and Nigel Hamilton-Smith – English liquidators charged with liquidating Stanford International Bank, Ltd. (SIB), an Antiguan entity through which Stanford did significant amounts of business.

To summarize prior posts – available by linking here – Wastell and Hamilton-Smith have sought recognition of SIB’s Antiguan liquidation through a Chapter 15 case commenced before U.S. District Judge David Godbey in Dallas.  Janvey, along with the SEC and the Internal Revenue Service, vehemently oppose recognition of the Antiguan liquidation as the “main proceeding” in the Stanford entities’ administration.

In an extensive brief filed earlier in the month, Mr. Janvey – joined by the SEC in separate briefing – detailed his reasons for doing so.  In essence, Mr. Janvey and the SEC claim that the “center of main interests” (COMI) of an investment fraud – which the SEC alleges Stanford perpetrated – is headquartered where the fraud is . . . and not from the presumptive location where the victims were led to believe a legitimate business was run.  They also appear to place heavy reliance on the fact that, though SIB was physically located in Antigua, it was not authorized to do regular business with local residents – and its liquidation therefore resembles numerous hedge fund liquidations that, to date, have experienced difficulty obtaining recognition as foreign “main proceedings” in other US Bankruptcy Courts.

This week, Mess’rs. Wastell and Hamilton-Smith answered Janvey’s argument.

In a 25-page reply brief, supported by extensive Appendices, Wastell and Hamilton-Smith explain that Janvey’s “fraud-based” argument is beside the point – as is the fact that SIB was maintained primarily for “offshore” operations in the US, South America, and Europe.

Instead, the liquidators claim that the extent of SIB’s physical operations in Antigua make its liquidation far different from the “letter-box” entities in Caribbean tax havens that US Bankruptcy Courts have, to date, been reluctant to recognize.  Wastell and Hamilton-Smith rely heavily on a California decision – In re Tri-Continental Exch. Ltd., 349 B.R. 627 (Bankr. E.D. Cal. 2006) – which involved alleged “sham” insurance entities that sold fraudulent insurance policies to US citizens through a network of domestic brokers and agents, but whose 20 employees and only office were operated in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.  Over the objection of a US judgment creditor, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Tri-Continental recognized as the foreign “main proceeding” a liquidation commenced through the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court, holding that even through the fraud was perpetrated primarily in the US and Canada, the debtors’ COMI was in St. Vincent and Grenadines because the debtors “conducted regular business operations” there.  349 B.R. at 629.

Using this analysis, Wastell and Hamilton-Smith argue that SIB’s Antiguan liquidation should likewise be recognized as a foreign “main proceeding” since, as even Mr. Janvey acknowledges, a debtor’s COMI is tantamount to its “principal place of business” under US law.  According to the liquidators, a debtor’s “principal place of business” is essentially the location of its “business operations,” and their brief refers repeatedly to SIB’s extensive physical and administrative operations in Antigua.  Wastell and Hamilton-Smith appear to tiptoe around Mr. Janvey’s argument that the Court should look to the debtor’s “nerve center” (in this case, the location of executive decisions) where a business’s operations are “far-flung,” using a brief (and conclusory) footnote to draw a distinction between the Stanford entities’ admittedly “far-flung” sales, on the one hand, and its operations on the other – which, according to the liquidators, were concentrated exclusively in Antigua.

Judge Godbey’s appointed examiner is due to weigh in on these issues shortly after the US July 4 holiday.

Stay tuned.

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