RK&O states its case

Richards Kibbe & Orbe has represented companies based in China since 1995. That year, we were retained to represent the New York branch of a Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE) that had been victimised in several financial frauds. One of the frauds was a Ponzi scheme in which a “financial adviser” induced the company’s officers in New York to “invest” in foreign currency futures. Those investments were repeatedly repaid on time, with a profit. The “profit”, however, was from the cash invested by other PRC companies that had been defrauded as well. The losses were ultimately in the tens of millions of dollars. Our representation of the SOE resulted in federal court litigation in the US against the mastermind of the scheme. Our investigation also resulted in a criminal investigation in New York, the extradition from Australia of one of the key players in the fraud, and his conviction and incarceration. We also assisted in, and represented the interests of our client in, the first US-China joint criminal investigation under the US/PRC Mutual Legal Assistance Arrangement of 1997. Our attorneys assisted agents of the Ministry of Public Security as well as the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US Department of Justice in interviewing witnesses and suspects in the case.

We also successfully represented a major Chinese company in litigation in the US against Lehman Brothers arising out of tens of millions of dollars of losses from inappropriate derivative transactions. Those derivatives were tied to fluctuations in the Thai baht. Our litigation resulted in a satisfactory settlement.

One of our partners formerly served as the first director of the Office of International Affairs at the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and negotiated the first memorandum of understanding with the Chinese Securities Regulatory Commission in 1994, as well as similar arrangements with other countries. Our lawyers are litigators, former prosecutors and former senior officials from the SEC.