Investment Manager Gets More Time in Pension
Probe
October 2, 2009 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Elliott Broidy,
founder of Markstone Capital Partners, won at least a brief
reprieve in a federal investigation into how public pension
systems allocate funds to outside managers.
According to Bloomberg News, U.S. District Judge Stephen
Wilson, at a September 30 hearing in Los Angeles, denied
the SEC's request to force Broidy to comply with its
subpoenas and gave him until October 12 to produce the
documents and until October 22 to testify, the dates
suggested by his lawyers, according to a minute order
posted today on the court's Web site.
Regulators had accused Broidy of failing to give
documents or testimony in an investigation of how public
pension systems allocate funds to outside managers.
Broidy, who hasn't been accused of wrongdoing, has given
"specious excuses" in the past four months to avoid
producing all documents sought in subpoenas, and he failed
to appear for testimony last week, the Securities and
Exchange Commission wrote in its court filing, according to
Bloomberg.
The SEC and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo are
investigating whether money managers illegally paid
placement agents for access to New York's retirement funds.
Broidy quit the Los Angeles Department of Fire and Police
Pensions oversight committee in May after the SEC queried
him about ties to firms under scrutiny in New York,
according to the report.
The New York state pension fund was an early investor in
Markstone, soon after Broidy created the firm in 2002.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the New York pension
fund committed $250 million to Markstone's debut $800
million fund.
The case is SEC v. Elliott Broidy, 09-06980, U.S.
District Court, Central District of California (Los
Angeles.)
Other Probes
Probes into pay to play practices in New York by
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and the SEC
expanded to other states (see
Cuomo Announces Multi-state Effort on Pension
Abuse
), and led some states to adopt new rules of their own
(see
NJ Adopts New Placement Agent
Standards
).
In April,
New York state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli banned use of
such "placement agents," and said he had hired the Day
Pitney LLP law firm and Pension Consulting Alliance, an
independent investment consulting company, to help
investigate any of the fund's holdings connected to targets
of the investigation by the state Attorney General and the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) (see
DiNapoli Bars Placement Agents for Empire State Fund
).
.
Nevin E. Adams
editors@plansponsor.com