Post by anenro on Feb 3, 2016 19:53:50 GMT 4
After 11-plus years, trial begins in lawsuit over $100 million in fake bank notes
A group of Columbus investors contends that the nation of Venezuela owes them $100 million, plus interest, for promissory notes they bought from a now-defunct bank.
But the notes were counterfeit, so they're not owed the money, said attorneys representing the South American nation. The attorneys contend that the notes that Skye Ventures bought were fake copies floated on the international market.
The investors sued in 2004. After more than 11 years of appeals and hearings, a bench trial began Monday before U.S. District Judge Edmund A. Sargus Jr. in Columbus.
Skye Ventures attorney Chip Cooper spent most of the day questioning Luis Alcalde, a Columbus attorney hired by the investors' group to check on the validity of the notes that Banco Desarrollo Agropecuario SA, or Bandagro, issued in 1981. Venezuela originally assumed responsibility for the notes issued by the government-supported bank.
Venezuela's attorney general issued an opinion in October 2003 stating that the notes were valid and that the country was obligated to make payments on them.
"She (the attorney general) is the lawyer of the state, whose job is to protect the patrimony of the state," Alcalde said.
Two months later, the attorney general reportedly reversed her stand.
Noting that the original opinion later drew outrage from Venezuela's finance minister and some lawmakers, Alcalde questioned whether the attorney general actually had retracted her statement.
Going over Alcalde's deposition and other statements, Andrew Schwartz, representing Venezuela, challenged whether the witness was concerned about whether the notes were fake.
Three of the government signers of the bonds later said that they hadn't signed them, Schwartz said.
"I also know they said they signed them," Alcalde said.
"You never talked to the three to ask if they signed them?"
"No," Alcalde answered.
Schwartz asked Alcalde whether James Paolo Pavanelli, manager of Gruppo Triad, which sold the notes to Skye Ventures, divulged that he had been convicted in England for floating counterfeit notes.
Alcalde said Pavanelli had told him, but Alcalde repeated that the attorney general attested to the validity of the notes.
In a 2007 New York Times story, Waldemar Cordero Vale, who was president of Bandagro at the time the bonds were issued, said he never signed them. He said Gruppo Triad participated in a fraudulent scheme with Venezuelan officials to share the payments.