MIAMI, June 18, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The law firm of Dimond Kaplan & Rothstein, P.A. (http://www.dkrpa.com) announced today that it has filed a class-action lawsuit against Standard Chartered Bank International (Americas) Limited and Standard Chartered Private Bank. The lawsuit seeks to recover millions of dollars in fees that Standard Chartered improperly charged to its customers.
The amount of the fees in question were calculated based on what was purported to be the net asset value of Standard Chartered customers' funds that had been "invested" in the now-infamous investment scam perpetrated by Bernard Madoff and Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, LLC (jointly referred to as "Madoff"). But as is now clear, the Madoff "investments" were, in fact, virtually worthless, and the purported net asset values upon which Standard Chartered calculated the foregoing fees that it charged to its customers were fraudulent. That is to say, the Plaintiffs and the putative class members paid Standard Chartered millions of dollars in fees based on phantom or fraudulent valuations. Dimond Kaplan & Rothstein seeks the return of these "Phantom Fees" on behalf of their clients and all other Standard Chartered customers who were charged the Phantom Fees.
The Plaintiffs and all class members in the class action lawsuit purchased shares of the Fairfield Sentry Limited hedge fund (the "Sentry Fund") through Standard Chartered. Thereafter, Standard Chartered charged Plaintiffs and the class members a quarterly fee (the "Fairfield Fee") that was calculated based on the purported net asset value of each customer's Sentry Fund holdings. Importantly, the Sentry Fund was one of the main feeder funds that "invested" its assets with Madoff. Indeed, the Sentry Fund handed virtually all of its assets over to Madoff to be "invested" on behalf of Sentry Fund investors, including Plaintiffs and the class.
Before Madoff shocked the investing world by revealing that his investment empire was nothing more than an elaborate Ponzi scheme, the Sentry Fund boasted a "value" of more than $7 billion, virtually all of which was "invested" with Madoff. Since then, it has become well known that Madoff, and hence the Sentry Fund, had little to no true value. Accordingly, the Fairfield Fees that were charged by Standard Chartered were based on the fraudulent "value" of the Sentry Fund before the Madoff fraud was uncovered and before it became known that the Sentry Fund was in fact virtually worthless. In other words, the Fairfield Fees never were calculated properly because they were calculated based on the highly inflated, fraudulent value attributed to the Sentry Fund before Madoff's scam was revealed, rather than the true value of the Sentry Fund, which, of course, was virtually worthless. As such, Plaintiffs and the class members paid millions of dollars of "Phantom Fees" based upon fraudulent valuations, and Standard Chartered improperly profited from those fees.
According to the lawsuit, Standard Chartered appears to have conceded that it was not entitled to charge the "Phantom Fees." Specifically, as soon as it became apparent that the Sentry Fund was virtually worthless, Standard Chartered stopped charging the Fairfield Fee.
Dimond Kaplan & Rothstein, P.A. is a nationally recognized law firm that is AV-rated by Martindale Hubbell. The firm represents investors and other clients nationwide in stockbroker misconduct, investment fraud, and other consumer-fraud cases. Contact attorneys Jeffrey Kaplan or David Rothstein of Dimond Kaplan & Rothstein, P.A. at (888) 578-6255 or jkaplan@dkrpa.com for a free case evaluation. You also may visit the firm on the web at www.dkrpa.com or www.investmentfraud-lawyer.com.