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The Stanford Saga – Chapter 13: Three Questions About Recognition

The Stanford Saga – Chapter 13: Three Questions About Recognition

An update regarding Peter Wastell and Nigel Hamilton-Smith’s dispute with federal Receiver Ralph Janvey over control of Stanford International Bank Ltd. (SIB)’s financial assets, and the 13th in a series on this blog covering the dissolution of Allen Stanford’s erstwhile financial empire and alleged international “Ponzi scheme” – a dissolution playing out in Montreal, London, and Dallas.

Wastell and Hamilton-Smith, liquidators appointed by Antiguan regulators for the purpose of winding up SIB in Antigua, and Janvey – a federal Receiver appointed at the behest of the US Securities and Exchange Commission to oversee the dissolution of Stanford’s financial interests in connection with an enforcement proceeding in the US – have sought recognition of their respective efforts in courts outside their home jurisdictions.  Each has met with mixed results: Janvey’s request for recognition was denied in the UK, while Wastell and Hamilton-Smith, originally recognized in Canada, have been removed and replaced by a Canadian firm.  Each of these results has been appealed.

Meanwhile, Wastell and Hamilton-Smith have sought recognition of the Antiguan wind-up in Janvey’s home court pursuant to Chapter 15 of the US Bankruptcy Code.  Initial briefing was submitted several months ago; supplemental filings (including copies of the decisions rendered in London and Montreal) have been trickling in.  US District Court Judge David Godbey has set an evidentiary hearing for mid-January 2010.

Messr’s. Wastell and Hamilton-Smith’s supplemental brief, filed last week in Dallas, addresses three issues, apparently raised by Judge Godbey during a recent conference call with the parties:

The Current State of Fifth Circuit Law on What Constitutes an Entity’s “Principal Place of Business,” Including Whether Stanford International Bank’s (“SIB”) Activities Were Active, Passive or “Far Flung.”

The liquidators acknowledge that while Chapter 15 of the US Bankruptcy Code doesn’t refer to an entity’s “principal place of business” in dealing with a cross-border insolvency, many US courts nevertheless analogize an entity’s “principal place of business” to its “center of main interests” (COMI) for purposes of determining the forum that should host the “main case.”   The American approach is, according to the liquidators, similar to that followed by European courts.

That said, what constitutes an entity’s “principal place of business” is not a settled question under US federal case law: The Fifth Circuit (where the Stanford matters are pending) applies a “total activity” test, which is also applied by the Sixth, Eighth, Tenth and Eleventh Circuits, whereas the Ninth Circuit applies a “place of operations” test, the Seventh Circuit applies a “nerve center” test, and the Third Circuit examines the corporation’s center of activity.  The liquidators suggest in a footnote that these “varying verbal formulas” are functional equivalents, and “generally amount to about the same thing” under nearly any given set of facts.

A significant portion of the liquidators’ brief is devoted to applying the facts of SIB’s dissolution to the Fifth Circuit’s “verbal formula;” i.e., “(1) when considering a corporation whose operations are far-flung, the sole nerve center of that corporation is more significant in determining principal place of business, (2) when a corporation has its sole operation in one state and executive offices in another, the place of activity is regarded as more significant, but (3) when the activity of a corporation is passive and the ‘brain’ of that corporation is in another state, the situs of the corporation’s brain is given greater significance.”  See J.A. Olson Co. v. City of Winona, 818 F.2d 401, 411 (5th Cir. 1987).

The liquidators argue:

– SIB’s principal place of business was in Antigua;

– SIB’s activities were neither “passive” nor “far flung” and thus the “nerve center” test should not predominate; but

– even if SIB’s operations were passive or far flung (which they were not), its “nerve center” was in Antigua.

The Relationship Between SIB and the Financial Advisors Who Marketed SIB’s CDs to Potential Investors.

The liquidators are emphatic that financial advisors who marketed and sold SIB’s CD’s to potential investors were not, in fact, agents of SIB.  Rather, “they operated individually under management agreements with SIB, or were employed by other Stanford companies which had management agreements with SIB . . . .  These advisors worked for Stanford related entities all over the world, including Antigua, Aruba, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Switzerland, and Venezuela, as well as in the United States . . . . All of the financial advisors marketed the CDs but none had authority to contract on behalf of SIB . . . . Further, Liquidators understand that the financial advisors sold other Stanford-related products besides SIB CDs.”  Those advisors who were located in the US ‘worked for an entity called the Stanford Group Companies (“SGC”), and though they marketed SIB CDs to potential depositors, they were not agents of SIB.'”

Put succinctly, the liquidators’ argument is that an international network of independent sales agents does not create the sort of “agency” that would alter cross-border COMI analysis under US law: “[US] Courts analyzing similar circumstances have consistently held that a company’s COMI or its principal place of business is in the jurisdiction where its operations are conducted even if the company has sales representatives in other jurisdictions.”

The “Single Business Enterprise” Concept as Part of the “Alter Ego” Theory of Imposing Liability.

 Finally, the liquidators argue that SIB is neither part of a “single business enterprise” nor an “alter ego” of other Stanford entities or of Stanford’s senior managers – and their respective “principal place[s] of business” in the US cannot be imputed to SIB for purposes of determining SIB’s COMI.  This is so, according to Messr’s. Wastell and Hamilton-Smith, because:

– The doctrine of “single business enterprise” liability is a particular creature of Texas law – which, in addition to being inapplicable to an Antiguan-chartered international bank such as SIB, is itself no longer viable even in Texas.  See SSP Partners v. Gladstrong Invs. (USA) Corp., 275 S.W.3d 444, 456(Tex. 2008) (rejecting the theory because Texas law does not “support the imposition of one corporation’s obligations on another” as permitted by the theory); see also Acceptance Indemn. Ins. Co. v. Maltez, No. 08-20288, 2009 WL 2748201, at *5 (5th Cir. June 30, 2009) (unpublished) (recognizing the holding of Gladstrong).

– The doctrine of “alter ego” does not apply because its primary use is to permit corporate creditors to “pierce the corporate veil” and seek recourse from the corporation’s parent or individual shareholders.  Here, the liquidators argue, Mr. Janvey is attempting to pierce the corporate veil in the opposite direction:  He is attempting to permit creditors of a corporate parent or individual principals to seek recourse from a distinct and separate foreign subsidiary.  Such “reverse veil piercing” is properly obtained (if at all) through the “extreme and unsual” remedy of substantive consolidation through bankruptcy.  However, liquidation of the Stanford entities through a federal bankruptcy proceeding is something Mr. Janvey has, to date, “studiously avoided.”

– The equitable purposes of the “alter ego” doctrine would be frustrated in this case.  The “injustice” that “alter ego” relief is designed to reverse would, in fact, only be furthered where SIB investors would see their recoveries diluted by creditors of other Stanford entities.

Mr. Janvey’s response is due December 17.

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