By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Morgan Stanley (MS.N) has been sued by a Virgin Islands pension fund that accused the Wall Street bank of defrauding investors by marketing $1.2 billion (753 million pounds) of risky mortgage-related notes that it expected to fail.
The lawsuit filed December 24 in Manhattan federal court said Morgan Stanley collaborated with credit rating agencies Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s to obtain “triple-A” ratings for notes marketed in 2007 as part of a collateralized debt obligation (CDO) known as Libertas.
See details of the case Employees’ Retirement System of the Government of the Virgin Islands v. Morgan Stanley & Co et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 09-10532.
Continue reading Morgan Stanley “defrauded investors”
UBS Tax Ruling May Prompt Fresh U.S. Legal Battle
By David Voreacos, Carlyn Kolker and Klaus Wille
A Swiss court ruling that impedes the Internal Revenue Service’s ability to collect data on 4,450 UBS AG accounts may prompt the U.S. to revive a lawsuit that shaped the IRS crackdown on offshore tax evasion.
The case involves an Aug. 19 agreement by UBS, the biggest Swiss bank, to settle a U.S. suit seeking data on clients suspected of dodging U.S. taxes. UBS ended the case by agreeing to hand over 4,450 accounts involving “tax fraud or the like.”
That accord violated Swiss law by defining fraud too broadly, Switzerland’s Federal Administrative Court ruled in an opinion released Jan. 22. The ruling may force the U.S. back into federal court in Miami to challenge UBS, New York tax lawyer Bryan C. Skarlatos said.
Continue reading UBS Tax Ruling May Prompt Fresh U.S. Legal Battle