$135 Million Stakes: Building the Case

It's not often that Harvard sues its investment advisors for $135 million. And, the University isn't taking any chances.

When Harvard decided to seek triple damages from investment giant Merrill Lynch earlier this month, they brought in not one, but three lawyers to help with the case.

The Allegation

The suit is a result of allegations by Harvard that the New York-based firm misrepresented the finances of Dallas's Lomas Financial Corporation, in which the University invested $45 million last May. Lomas declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September.

Attorneys from two of Boston's most prestigious law firms--Hill & Barlow and Ropes & Gray--have joined Harvard's own General Counsel's office in the case, one of the lawyers said yesterday.

"The claim is that there was not full disclosure and some misrepresentation by Merrill Lynch," says Vice President and General Counsel Daniel Steiner '54. Speaking earlier this week, Steiner declined to comment further on the case.

Although Harvard filed suit in Boston Federal District Court more than two weeks ago, Richard W. Renehan, an attorney at Hill & Barlow, says he cannot predict where the case will go until December 18, when Merrill Lynch has said it will legally respond to the allegations.

"The case is so new it would be premature to say what course it will take," says Renehan, who is representing Harvard for the first time.

In fact, Renehan says he's not even sure whether the suit will go to court. But, he adds, the Merrill Lynch response will help to provide "the answers to some of these questions."

The outcome of the suit against Merrill Lynch turns in part on whether Harvard is able to salvage its $45 million from the now-bankrupt Dallas financial services company.

And Bryant Berry Jr., a Texas attorney who specializes in bankruptcy law, says this sort of litigation "can drag on for years."

Asked whether an investor usually gets its money back from a bankrupt company, Berry says the chances are generally slim. "Sometimes [the investor] does--most often it doesn't," he says.

William F. McCarthy, a Ropes & Gray attorney who is handling the bankruptcy litigation between Harvard and Lomas, was not available for comment yesterday.

Harvard is not the only one to bring in multiple counsel on this case. Renehan says he expects that Merrill Lynch attorney Kathleen Comfrey, a lawyer at New York's Sherman and Sterling, will be joined by a member of a Boston firm sometime in the next few weeks.