Quiros’ brokerage: Email search for ‘Ponzi’ would find many hits

The dispute over the term “Ponzi” continues to rage in the class-action lawsuit brought by investors alleging massive fraud in Northeast Kingdom development projects.

Attorneys for the brokerage firm Raymond James say they shouldn’t have to comply with a plaintiff request that the firm sort through nearly a decade of electronic records for the word. Federal regulators had used the term in their case against the developers.

“Searching for the word ‘Ponzi’ as a standalone term in the emails of 18 people from September 2007 to December 2014 would not turn up material relevant to the claims or defenses in this case,” wrote Deborah S. Corbishley, an attorney for Raymond James, “but would add costs to Raymond James to sift through thousands of irrelevant documents.”

Corbishley added in the motion filed this week, “If there is any reasonable basis for a belief that anyone at Raymond James used the word Ponzi in an email in connection with these accounts before the suit was filed, plaintiffs’ counsel has not explained it.”

Read more: http://vtdigger.org/2016/11/02/quiros-brokerage-email-search-for-ponzi-would-find-many-hits/