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UK banks named in $5b Adelphia lawsuit THE GUARDIAN, July 8 Barclays, the Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC are among several hundred banks named in a lawsuit filed by creditors of the bankrupt US cable company Adelphia, alleging that they helped the founding family loot billions from the firm. The complaint filed on behalf of bondholders is seeking the return of $5bn (£3bn). It claims that the banks knowingly arranged loans, with Adelphia assets as collateral, which were used by the Regis family to enrich themselves. The family is said to have used the money to increase control over Adelphia by buying more than $2bn in shares, to build a golf course on land owned by the family and to fund the Buffalo Sabres, its professional ice hockey team. Other banks named in the complaint include JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, ABN A o, Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank. The suit is one of the biggest ever brought by a group of creditors and is the latest in a growing number seeking to blame banks for corporate wrongdoing. This filing makes familiar allegations - that the banks were prepared to bend their own rules in order to court Adelphia and win further lucrative investment banking business. The filing, by the law firm Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Fried man, said the suit is sought to redress the banks’ “knowing participation, substantial assistance and complicity in one of the most serious cases of systematic corporate looting and breach of fiduciary duty in American history”. Adelphia became a familiar name last summer when the founder, John Rigas, and two of his sons, Michael and Timothy, were paraded before cameras in handcuffs as a warning to other executives who might be tempted to cross the line. They were charged with conspiracy and fraud in a criminal complaint that said they used the publicly listed company as a personal “piggy bank”. They have pleaded not guilty. The company filed for bankruptcy following the disclosure that it was liable for billions of dollars of loans to off-balance sheet entities controlled by the Rigas family.

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