Benjamin D. Reichard

Experience

• The Official Stanford Investors Committee (OSIC), with claimed damages exceeding $5 billion, resulting from the infamous Stanford International Bank certificate of deposit Ponzi scheme in The Official Stanford Investors Committee. v. Bank of New York Mellon (24-cv-3070 N.D. Tex.); OSIC’s claims include aiding and abetting in the breach of fiduciary duty and aiding and abetting fraud related to BNYM’s role in providing banking services to Stanford International Bank and its affiliated entities, facilitating investors’ purchases of fraudulent CDs.
• Individuals and the Official Stanford Investor’s Committee against five banks, with particular concentration on claims against Trustmark National Bank and Independent Bank of Texas (formerly known as Bank of Houston), in a lawsuit alleging the banks’ aiding and abetting of the $7 billion Ponzi scheme perpetrated by R. Allen Stanford; settlements of $100 million were reached with both Trustmark and Bank of Houston in early 2023, with total recoveries from all five bank defendants (The Toronto-Dominion Bank, Société Générale Private Banking (Suisse) S.A., HSBC Bank plc, Trustmark, and Bank of Houston) amounting to more than $1.6 billion.
• The Board of Commissioners of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East in a highly-publicized coastal land loss case against dozens of oil and gas production and development corporations and in a related challenge to a recently-enacted Louisiana statute.
• Individual landowners in claims involving large scale environmental damage caused by oil and gas operations on their property.
• An energy-transport startup company against Cargill, Inc. and Cargill’s local affiliate, asserting breach of contract and tortious interference with contract following collapse of a transportation facilities project valued at $1 billion.