A district court judge has dismissed a securities fraud lawsuit filed by the Employees’ Retirement System of the Government of the Virgin Islands against Morgan Stanley (MS). The investor complaint, submitted in 2009, accused the financial firm of defrauding investors.
The pension fund had purchased the notes as part of a CDO that was marketed and set up by Morgan Stanley. The plaintiffs believe that the financial firm worked with Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investor Services to set up “false and misleading Triple-A credit ratings” for the notes. Because the high ratings, the plaintiffs bought the notes at a price that was inflated. The fund contends that the financial firm knew that in fact Morgan Stanley had insider information that the MBS underlying the notes were a lot riskier than they were led to believe and came from lenders that employed flawed underwriting standards. Many of notes were downgraded to junk by the end of 2007. The plaintiffs said the firm purposely got investors to get behind the CDO because it was taking a short position on underlying assets.
The portfolio, which was 92% residential mortgage-backed securities and was backed by $1.2 billion in assets, was exposed to $100 million from New Century Mortgage Corp. and over $130 million in loans from Option One Mortgage Corp. According to the retirement fund, the two homebuyers had poor credit scores. The Libertas collateralized debt obligation went into credit-default swaps, which referenced specific residential MBS.
Per U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the Virgin Islands government pension fund did not adequately plead that Morgan Stanley misled it about the quality of the MBS that were underlying the Libertas CDO. Judge Barbara S. Jones, said the plaintiffs failed to state a fraud claim because its pleadings were not successful in alleging that Morgan Stanley made misstatements about the credit ratings of notes based on the underlying mortgage-backed securities. Also, the court noted that it wasn’t Morgan Stanley that issued the ratings or the statements in the CDO’s operating memorandum disclosures. Because of this, the court said that the plaintiff could not allege that Morgan Stanley had issued to it a materially false statement.
Shepherd Smith Edwards and Kantas founder and securities fraud attorney William Shepherd said, “Our law firm has been successful in maintaining similar cases in arbitration or state courts. I am curious as to just how and why this case was filed, or otherwise ended-up, in a federal court. Pleading requirements under federal securities laws are problematic, and there are a number of other hurdles one must overcome in federal court proceedings. There is no private right of action available under New York’s securities statute (The Martin Act). Other types of claims may be pursued under NY state law.”
Morgan Stanley Wins Dismissal of Virgin Islands Pension Fund’s CDO Lawsuit, Bloomberg, September 30, 2011
More Blog Posts:
Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. and Former Executive Faces SEC Charges Over Sale of CDOs to Five Wisconsin School Districts, Stockbroker Fraud Blog, August 10, 2011
Contact our institutional investment fraud lawyers today.