Securities & Exchange Commission v. Byers

671 F. Supp. 2d 531, 71 U.C.C. Rep. Serv. 2d (West) 364, 2009 WL 4582454, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 112494
Procedural entryThis page is a short order in Securities & Exchange Commission v. Byers. Read the opinion of the Court — 590 F. Supp. 2d 637
District Court, S.D. New York·Decided December 3, 2009·No. 08 Civ. 7104(DC)·Published

Opinion

OPINION

CHIN, District Judge.

In an opinion dated July 23, 2009 (the “Distribution Opinion”), I approved the distribution plan proposed by the Receiver (the “Distribution Plan”). See SEC v. Byers, 637 F.Supp.2d 166 (S.D.N.Y.2009). In the Distribution Opinion, I ordered the Receiver to work with investors and creditors to attempt to agree on distributions, but made clear that I would resolve disputes as needed. On September 24, 2009, 1 held a hearing (the “Hearing”) to discuss the outstanding disputes. I ruled on certain disputes and reserved decision on others. Set forth below are my rulings, grouped by the following categories: Investor disputes, disqualification disputes, and creditor disputes.

This decision only resolves active disputes. An active dispute is any dispute that existed after August 24, 2009 — the deadline I set for the Receiver to resolve all disputes with investors — or any dispute that the investor or creditor otherwise explicitly asked the Court to resolve.

A. Investor Disputes

To protect the privacy of investors, the Receiver assigned each investor a number. The Court will refer to investors by number in this decision.

1. Investor 2

Investor 2 received cash distributions in the amount of $29,864.48, and paid taxes of $8,750.29 on those distributions. Investor 2 argues that his net investment claim should be increased by the amount he paid in taxes. Because all investors would have been required to comply with federal and state tax laws and to pay applicable taxes on any distributions that they received, *533 Investor 2 is not in a unique position. The claim is denied.

2. Investor 24

Investor 24 requests credit for interest that he believes his Wextrust account earned on a monthly basis from January 2008 through May 16, 2008. He calculates the amount that he believes he should be credited based on the account’s 2007 rate of return. Wextrust records indicate that interest payments were generally credited on a quarterly — not monthly — basis. The records further indicate that Investor 24 has already been credited with his first quarter distribution of interest from 2008, paid on March 31, 2008, but that Wextrust never credited any other distributions of interest to the account because they decided to defer distributions indefinitely, notifying investors of that decision on May 16, 2008. Investor 24 has been credited with all of the interest that actually accrued to his account in 2008, and his claim is denied.

3. Investor 35

Investor 35 received $113,332.71 in cash distributions from Wextrust. He objects to this amount being subtracted from his net investor claim because he argues that the payments represent legitimate interest that was actually earned from real loans. In effect, Investor 35 argues in favor of “tracing” the relative legitimacy or illegitimacy of each investor’s individual investment with Wextrust. I explicitly rejected the “tracing” method in the Distribution Plan. SEC v. Byers, 637 F.Supp.2d at 176-77. Accordingly, the claim is denied.

4. Investors 71, 485, and 679

Investors 71, 485, and 679 request modifications to the Receiver’s treatment of three separate investments.

First, the three investors request recognition of profits promised — but not paid— for their investment in Lion’s Walk. The Distribution Plan does not provide for return of any of Wextrust’s promised but undelivered profits. Accordingly, this claim is denied.

Second, Investor 485 and Investor 679 request that their claim not be reduced by the amount of cash distributions that they received on investments in Brandon Investments, LLC. This objection is an objection to the “net investor method” adopted by the Distribution Plan. SEC v. Byers, 637 F.Supp.2d at 182. The claim is denied.

Finally, all three investors request recognition of an investment in Pure Africa Mining (Pty.) Ltd. that was not fully documented. For the reasons stated on the record at the Hearing, these claims are granted.

5. Investors 76 and 77

Investors 76 and 77 (the same individual) received distributions from her Wextrust account and reinvested them in an IRA account. She argues that these monies should not be subtracted from her net investment claim because she did not receive cash payments — rather, she rolled the distributions into another brokerage account. This investor has received the full value of her distributions, and thus her claim is denied.

6. Investor 519

Investor 519 objects to the method used to calculate his investor claim. Specifically, he objects to the deduction of $39,382.76 in cash distributions from his net claim. This objection is to the “net investor method” adopted by the Distribution Plan. SEC v. Byers, 637 F.Supp.2d at 182. It is overruled.

*534 7. Investor 797

Investor 797 took out a $200,000 home equity loan so that he could invest the proceeds in Wextrust. He requests that he be credited with the fees and interest that he has paid to a third party to obtain that loan. Such monies were never invested in Wextrust, and they cannot be counted as part of his net investment. Investor 797’s claim is denied.

8. Investor 1046

For the reasons stated on the record at the Hearing, this claim is denied to the extent that Investor 1046 seeks interest on his original investment. As discussed on the record, however, the Receiver shall conduct an investigation to determine whether any investors were mistakenly given credit for interest on their original investments and, if so, the Receiver shall advise the Court how he intends to rectify the mistakes.

9. Investor 1486

Investor 1486 is a group of relatives of Joseph Shereshevsky. The group requests recognition of undocumented investments in Wextrust that they claim Mr. Shereshevsky gave to them as “replacements” for a failed investment in an earlier, non-Wextrust investment scheme. In exchange for these Wextrust investments, the group claims that they promised not to report Mr. Shereshevsky to the SEC. This transaction was already the subject of litigation in the Eastern District of Virginia, and Investor 1486’s claims against Wextrust have already been dismissed in that court. They are dismissed here as well.

10. Investor 1611

For the reasons stated on the record at the Hearing, this claim is denied.

11. Investor 1645

Investor 1645 objects to the deduction of $27,479.60 in cash distributions from his net claim. This objection is an objection to the “net investor method” adopted by the Distribution Plan. SEC v. Byers, 637 F.Supp.2d at 182.

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Securities & Exchange Commission v. Byers, 671 F. Supp. 2d 531, 71 U.C.C. Rep. Serv. 2d (West) 364, 2009 WL 4582454, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 112494 (S.D.N.Y. 2009).

671 F. Supp. 2d 531 (Securities & Exchange Commission v. Byers) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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