A bankruptcy judge has given the okay for creditors of failed brokerage firm Refco Inc. to seek information from former Refco executives and insiders about the company's collapse.
Refco's creditors committee has already obtained $750 million in settlements, but asked the judge to compel information from former executives who might have knowledge about the location of assets. A Manhattan judge did just that -- ordering executives including former Refco senior vice president Christopher Sugrue and former Refco executive vice president Thomas Hackl to hand over documents requested by the group.
A trio of accounting firms -- Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Arthur Andersen LLP -- has also been ordered to comply with subpoenas.
Separately, a bankrupt unit of Refco has been ordered to comply with a British court's ruling to pay $124 million to Russia's largest bank.
The order, this time from a district judge in Manhattan, follows Sberbank's December filing of a lawsuit against Refco Securities LLC. The bank had accused Refco of taking the bank's collateral, about $120 million, in several loan transactions. The remaining $4 million includes interest and legal fees.
Refco filed for bankruptcy protection in October 2005, after disclosing that its chief executive, Phillip Bennett, had concealed $430 million of bad loans to customers, and that its financial statements were not reliable.
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