Andrew Bickerton and BDO BVI facing Fallout from Fraud

Andrew Bickerton of BDO BVI is facing fallout from his fraudulent activities during his reign as Receiver in a recent Nevis Court matter. Mr. Bickerton ignored a stay granted by the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court, instead authoring fraudulent documents and transferring assets to parties affiliated with the Plaintiff. The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court ultimately ruled in favour of the Defendant, dismissing the claims but not before Mr. Bickerton and his partners including the London based Plaintiff and certain soon to be named hedge funds that stole hundreds of millions of dollars of assets. Mr. Bickerton has now been named as a party in the assessment of damages where the quantum or award is also expected to run in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

BDO seems to be no stranger to these types of activities as The Washington Post reported that BDO Seidman had been slammed with a $521 million settlement including $351 million in punitive damages arising out of the ES Bank negligence case.

Prudential, the Plaintiff who brought the underlying frivolous claims in the matter that the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court ultimately dismissed has had it's business practices and ethics placed under the spotlight, even in its dealings with its own employees.

A lawsuit of more than 230 employees alleging that Prudential Life Insurance conspired with a law firm to prevent them from pursuing employment discrimination claims is headed to trial. The suit, filed in New Jersey, alleges that the law firm representing the employees accepted $5 million from Prudential to steer the employees away from trying their claims and into a confidential alternative dispute resolution process. The former employees claim that as a result of those efforts, those claims settled for far less than they would have received had they pursued their claims to trial.

The judge handling the case has also put the parties on an expedited discovery schedule, which means that some plaintiffs will have only about two hours for their depositions. The unusual move could be to try and force a settlement among the parties, or it could simply be that, given the length of time the case has been in the court system and the number of parties involved that this kind of schedule is the only practical way to get the matter resolved.

Prudential has had to cough up hundreds of millions of dollars to settle fraud allegations including these recent SEC charges:

Washington, D.C., - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced settled enforcement proceedings against Prudential Equity Group, LLC (PEG), formerly known as Prudential Securities Inc. (PSI), alleging that former PSI registered representative's defrauded mutual funds by concealing their identities, and those of their customers, to evade mutual funds' prospectus limitations on market timing. PEG has been ordered to pay a total of $600 million pursuant to a global civil and criminal settlement with the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts, the Commission, the Massachusetts Securities Division, NASD, the New Jersey Bureau of Securities, the New York Attorney General's Office and the New York Stock Exchange.