Boris Ziser is a partner and co-head of Schulte Roth & Zabel’s Finance Group, where he advises on a diverse range of asset classes and transactions such as asset-backed lending and securitization, warehouse facilities, secured financings, specialty finance lending and esoteric finance transactions. Boris manages the London finance practice and the global litigation funding and law firm finance practice.
With almost 30 years of experience, Boris works on a variety of asset classes, including life settlements, litigation funding, equipment leases, structured settlements, lottery receivables, timeshare loans, merchant cash advances and cell towers, in addition to other esoteric asset classes such as intellectual property, various insurance-related cash flows and other cash flow producing assets. He also represents investors, lenders, hedge funds, private equity funds and finance companies in acquisitions and dispositions of portfolios of assets and financings secured by those portfolios.
Company Name and Description: With a firm focus on private capital, Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP is comprised of legal advisers and commercial problem-solvers who combine exceptional experience, industry insight, integrated intelligence and commercial creativity to help clients raise and invest assets and protect and expand their businesses. The firm has offices in New York, Washington, DC and London, and advises clients on investment management, corporate and transactional matters, and provides counsel on securities regulatory compliance, enforcement and investigative issues.
Company Website: https://www.srz.com/
Year Founded: 1969
Headquarters: New York, New York, U.S.A.
Area of Focus: Finance, Litigation Finance, Private Credit, Structured Finance
Member Quote: “With its uncorrelated investment opportunity and plethora of rules that vary by jurisdiction (State-by-State and international), litigation funding is a complicated asset class that is rewarding at the same time, as it enables those with meritorious claims, but without the necessary resources, to pursue justice.”
SEC Sues Father and Son over Fraudulent Mass Tort Funding Scheme
Whilst litigation finance is now a mature and established industry, this does not stop rogue actors from engaging in fraudulent schemes to try and reap personal benefit at the expense of unwitting investors.
Reporting by Bloomberg Law provides details on a lawsuit brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against a father and son in Florida who are accused of using a supposed litigation funding scheme to defraud investors out of $125,000. The lawsuit filed last Friday alleges that Michael Chhabra and Vineet “Vincent” Chhabra set up Tort Fund LLC in April 2019, claiming that the company would provide litigation finance to law firms, when in reality the pair used it as a personal fund for their own legal fees and miscellaneous expenses.
The SEC’s suit, which was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, claims that Tort Fund LLC’s owners had advertised the fund as a way for investors to support mass tort cases being brought against medical device and household product manufacturers, but did not enter into any funding agreements with law firms to do so. The $125,000 raised was then used to cover legal costs in Michael Chhabra’s own bankruptcy proceedings, paying for the pair’s personal expenses, with around $40,000 spent on maintaining the fraudulent scheme by paying individuals who solicited new investors.
In its lawsuit, the SEC is asking the court to impose civil penalties and pay out the profits from the scheme, and to prohibit the pair from running any companies that have a class of securities registered in the future. The SEC’s filing can be read here.
