Goldman Sachs Sued for $510 Million

Goldman Sachs has been sued for $510 million in New York State Court, which is at least more viable than federal court. The case is Primus Pacific Partners I LP v Goldman Sachs Group Inc et al, New York State Supreme Court, New York County, No. 653885/2016. A shareholder of one of its former clients is suing Goldman Sachs over alleged fraudulent misrepresentations that involve links to the prime minister of Malaysia. The plaintiff previously lost its challenge in the Malaysian courts after seeking to stop a transaction involving a Malaysian company where the courts were not very friendly given the relationship to the head of state. 

Primus Pacific Partners is suing Goldman for fraud and breach of fiduciary duty, alleging that Goldman concealed a conflict of interest with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak when it was advising EON. Goldman Sachs was an adviser to 1MDB, which was a development fund established by the prime minister. At the same time, Goldman was also the financial adviser to EON.

The suit comes as 1MDB also faces huge problems where U.S. prosecutors sued on Wednesday to seize more than $1 billion in assets that they said were tied to an international scheme to launder money that was stolen from the Malaysian state fund, 1Malaysia. The allegations that Prime Minister Najib misappropriated its funds are being investigated.

On top of all this, the New York Times reported that the Federal Reserve is preparing an enforcement action against Goldman Sachs related to confidential government information that was leaked from the Fed to one of its bankers.

Meanwhile, Swiss prosecutors said they were helping the U.S. on the investigation. The Swiss also opened their own criminal proceedings in August 2015, against two formal officials of the fund on a string of corruption charges. Their investigation has since been extended to other officials as well.