Lake Shore Files Emergency Motion To Thaw Assets |
Date: Monday, July 23, 2007
Author: Christopher Faille, HedgeWorld
CHICAGO (HedgeWorld.com)—Lake Shore Asset
Management Ltd., a commodity trading adviser whose investors' assets
have been frozen by a federal district court in Chicago, filed an
emergency motion Thursday [July 19] asking that the assets be released
next week.
The assets were frozen because the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
believes that Lake Shore has withheld information it is obliged by
statute to disclose Previous HedgeWorld Story. Lake Shore has disputed the CFTC's claims, saying they resulted from a series of misunderstandings Previous HedgeWorld Story.
Much of the CFTC's complaint, and much of an answer to that complaint
that Lake Shore filed with the court on Wednesday [July 18], focuses on
information provided to the CFTC and to the National Futures
Association by Lake Shore Asset Management's non-executive chairman,
Laurence Rosenberg.
In a 14-page answer to the CFTC's complaint, Lake Shore's
attorneys repeatedly said that they "lack knowledge or information
sufficient to form a belief" as to what statements Mr. Rosenberg made
to either the NFA or the CFTC staff.
Lake Shore denied in general that it has "engaged or is about to engage
in acts and practices in violation of … the Commodity Exchange Act."
Lake Shore filed its emergency motion for the end of the asset
freeze the day after it filed its answer to the CFTC complaint. It
represented the dispute as one of the extra-territorial claims of the
CFTC, which Lake Shore contends is seeking records pertaining to the
world-wide activities of the Lake Shore Group of Companies. The dispute
over whether the CFTC has that authority "raises issues of fact as well
as issues of law," and the agency "should not be permitted to hold
hostage the assets of the Funds and their investors as leverage to
attempt to coerce LSGC into complying with CFTC's disputed demands."
Lake Shore has requested that the court hear the motion and rule on it during the week of July 23.
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