Refco: Estate Complaint FINAL AS FILED
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IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS COUNTY DEPARTMENT, LAW DIVISION MARC S. KIRSCHNER, ) as Trustee of the Refco Litigation Trust, ) ) Plaintiff, ) ) -vs- ) Case No. _________ ) GRANT THORNTON LLP, MAYER, ) BROWN, ROWE & MAW, LLP, ERNST & ) YOUNG U.S. LLP, ) PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS LLP, ) Jury Trial Demanded CREDIT SUISSE SECURITIES (USA) LLC ) (f/k/a CREDIT SUISSE FIRST BOSTON ) LLC), BANC OF AMERICA SECURITIES ) LLC, DEUTSCHE BANK SECURITIES ) INC., PHILLIP R. BENNETT, SANTO C. ) MAGGIO, ROBERT C. TROSTEN, TONE N. ) GRANT, REFCO GROUP HOLDINGS, ) INC., LIBERTY CORNER CAPITAL ) STRATEGIES, LLC, WILLIAM T. PIGOTT, ) EMF FINANCIAL PRODUCTS, LLC, EMF ) CORE FUND, LTD., DELTA FLYER FUND, ) LLC, ERIC M. FLANAGAN, INGRAM ) MICRO, INC., CIM VENTURES, INC., ) BECKENHAM TRADING CO. INC., ) ANDREW KRIEGER, COAST ASSET ) MANAGEMENT, LLC (f/k/a COAST ASSET ) MANAGEMENT LP), CS LAND ) MANAGEMENT, LLC, and CHRISTOPHER ) PETITT, ) ) Defendants. ) COMPLAINT This action is brought by Marc S. Kirschner (the “Trustee”), the Court-approved Trustee for the Refco Litigation Trust (the “Trust”), as the duly authorized representative to commence all claims and causes of action formerly owned by the bankruptcy estates of Refco Inc. and certain of its direct and indirect subsidiaries (collectively, “Refco” and, individually or collectively, the “Company”), including Refco Group Ltd., LLC (“RGL”) and Refco Capital Markets, Ltd. (“RCM”), against defendants Grant Thornton LLP (“GT”), Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw LLP (“MB”), Ernst & Young U.S. LLP (“E&Y”), PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (“PwC”), Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (f/k/a Credit Suisse First Boston LLC) (“Credit Suisse”), Banc of America Securities LLC (“BAS”), Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. (“Deutsche”), Phillip R. Bennett (“Bennett”), Santo C. Maggio (“Maggio”), Robert C. Trosten (“Trosten”), Tone N. Grant (“Grant”), Refco Group Holdings, Inc. (“RGHI”), Liberty Corner Capital Strategies, LLC (“Liberty Corner”); William T. Pigott (“Pigott”), EMF Financial Products, LLC (“EMF Financial”), EMF Core Fund, Ltd. (“EMF Core Fund”), Delta Flyer Fund, LLC (“Delta Flyer”), Eric M. Flanagan (“Flanagan”), Ingram Micro, Inc. (“Ingram Micro”), CIM Ventures, Inc. (“CIM Ventures”), Beckenham Trading Co. Inc. (“Beckenham”), Andrew Krieger (“Krieger”), Coast Asset Management, LLC (f/k/a Coast Asset Management LP) (“Coast”), CS Land Management, LLC (“CS Land”), and Christopher Petitt (“Petitt”) for their roles in a massive scheme to loot Refco -- a scheme that resulted in one of the swiftest corporate meltdowns in U.S. history and caused Refco over $2 billion in damages. The Trustee as and for his complaint against the defendants states as follows based on information and belief, such information and belief based on the investigation of the Trustee and his counsel and a review of, among other things: (a) the filings of Refco with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”); (b) a review of the filings, documents, and testimony produced pursuant to Refco’s re- organization under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code in the United States Bankruptcy Court of the Southern District of New York (the “Bankruptcy Proceedings”) (assigned to the Honorable Judge Robert Drain and jointly administered under the caption “In re Refco Inc., et al., Case No. 05-60006 (RDD)”); (c) the Final Report of the Court-appointed Independent Examiner (the “Examiner”) in the Bankruptcy Proceedings; (d) the Third Superseding Indictment in U.S. v. Phillip R. Bennett, et al., S3 05 Cr. 1192 (NRB) (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 16, 2007); and (e) other relevant public documents: 2 Nature of the Case 1. The defendants include a “who’s who” of some of the biggest names in corporate finance, law, and accounting, whose reputations and substantial assistance were required for Bennett, Maggio, Trosten, and Grant (the “Refco Insiders”) to strip out billions of dollars in Refco assets. Bennett and other Refco Insiders face criminal charges for their misconduct. The Trustee brings this action to recover from the Refco Insiders and those who knowingly assisted them in stripping out Refco’s assets, causing billions of dollars in damage to the Company and its creditors. 2. The Refco Insiders’ looting of Refco was not a simple, straight-forward theft. With the active assistance of the Company’s auditors and legal and financial advisors, the Refco Insiders and their cohorts devised an elaborate scheme through which they maintained the illusion that Refco was a highly successful, financially secure broker-dealer. It was this illusion ofa thriving company that enabled the Refco Insiders to steal billions of dollars from Refco by positioning Refco for, and ultimately carrying out, what appeared on the surface to be a legitimate “buy-out” oftheir interests in RGL. 3. However, as the professionals who advised Refco and facilitated this lucrative cashing-out knew and/or consciously avoided knowing, Refco’s financial condition was not sufficient to warrant a lucrative sale, and the buy-out was, in fact, nothing more than an outright looting of Refco’s assets. As Refco’s auditors and financial, legal, and tax advisors knew and/or consciously avoided knowing, Refco sustained hundreds of millions of dollars in customer and proprietarytrading losses in the late 1990s -- trading losses which the Refco Insiders did not disclose because doing so would have shaken customer confidence, negatively impacted Refco’s financial condition, and foreclosed any lucrative “cashing-out” of the Refco Insiders’ interests. 4. To maintain the illusion of financial and operational strength and stability long enough for the Refco Insiders to line their pockets with Refco’s assets, the Refco Insiders conspired for over seven years to conceal Refco’s trading losses, true operating expenses, and marginal performance by fraudulently inflating Refco’s revenues and funding virtually every aspect of Refco’s operations and expenses with assets belonging to customers of RCM, Refco’s unregulated 3 broker-dealer. It was a three-part scheme: create the illusion of solid financial health; maintain that illusion; and orchestrate a lucrative cashing-out of their interests. 5. Part One -- Cleaning up the Financial Statements. The Refco Insiders created the illusion that Refco was a financially solid and healthy broker-dealer by concealing Refco’s trading losses and operating expenses from its financial statements, recording them as receivables owed by RGHI (a related-party company owned and controlled by Bennett and, prior to the leveraged buy-out (“LBO”), by Bennett and Grant, Refco’s former CEO), and inflating Refco’s revenues by recording hundreds of millions of dollars in accrued interest income on these phantom receivables. 6. Part Two -- Keep the Illusion Going Long Enough to Cash-Out. Once these losses and operating expenses were concealed as a receivable owed to Refco (along with hundreds of millions of dollars in fictitious accrued interest on that receivable), the Refco Insiders, with the assistance of Refco’s lawyers, MB, carefully designed and implemented a series of fraudulent transactions -- the so-called Round Trip Loans (“RTLs”) -- whose sole purpose was to prevent these related-party receivables from being disclosed. These RTLs purported to be loans involving third parties, but were, in fact, little more than bogus bookkeeping entries that served to hide the fact that RGHI -- a related-party company owned and controlled by Bennett and Grant, the principal asset of which was stock of Refco -- was being used to hide Refco’s trading losses and operating expenses by making them appear to be a debt owed by RGHI to Refco (the “RGHI Receivable”). Each of defendants Liberty Corner, Pigott, EMF Financial, EMF Core Fund, Delta Flyer, Flanagan, Ingram Micro, CIM Ventures, Beckenham, Krieger, Coast, CS Land, and Petitt made this concealment of Refco’s true financial condition possible by participating in the RTLs in exchange for a fee. 7. At the same time that the RGHI Receivable was concealed through fraudulent RTLs, the Refco Insiders funded Refco’s operations by routinely swiping RCM’s customer assets and using them to finance RGL and other Refco affiliates that had essentially no ability and no intention of repaying the RCM customer funds. 8. Refco’s auditors, legal advisors, and financial advisors actively assisted in manufacturing and maintaining this illusion not only by lending their reputations and an aura of 4 respectability to Refco’s finances and operations but, as detailed below, by actively participating in the fraudulent scheme. Indeed, the fraudulent scheme perpetrated by the Refco Insiders only could have worked with the active assistance of Refco’s cadre of outside auditors, professionals, and advisors. 9. Part Three -- the Cash-Out. Having successfully maintained the illusion of Refco’s financial health, in 2004 the Refco Insiders, with the substantial assistance of the Company’s outside accounting and auditing professionals, and legal and financial advisors, caused RGL to borrow $1.4 billion of bank and bond debt to fund a LBO that enriched the Refco Insiders at the expense of Refco and its creditors, including its largest creditor -- RCM. As a result of the LBO, RGL was stripped of its assets and saddled with $1.4 billion in new debt. RCM was left with approximately $2 billion in worthless intercompany “IOUs” and was unable to repay the customers from whose accounts assets had been swiped to fund Refco’s business as part of the fraud. 10. A year later, as was always