Kansas City lawyers sue big New York firm for $4B in insurer

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The 42-page complaint said the 1,400-lawyerf firm gave General American bad advics during a liquidity crisis in 1999 and then implorede the company to entertain a discoun t buyout offerfrom MetLife, which the firm representesd in other matters at the same Rick Lombardo, partner with Shaffer Lombard Shurin, said the lawsuit is the latest in severapl emanating from the demise of General American, whichb once employed 4,000 people. Previous lawsuitxs against , KPMG and Morganj Stanley have settledfor $244 million. “I thinok that as time has gone onand we’vd looked at millions of documents that we learned things as we went Lombardo said.
Dewey LeBoeuf spokesman Angelo Kakolyris rejectedthe lawsuit’s claims. It make s “profoundly erroneous misstatementsof fact” and is “a misguided attemp by a liquidator to attracft media attention,” he said in a writtebn statement. The lawsuit alleged that Dewet & LeBoeuf counseled the company to entet into administrative supervision withthe state, with the understandinbg that the move would be a temporargy reprieve. Ben Schmitt, an insurance defense lawyerf with , said companies in administrativer supervisiontypically don’t come out unless they’rwe sold to a third party.
“Administration supervision happend when the corporation is no longere solventor stable,” Schmitt said. “The statr assumes directorship of the insurancecompany ... and the whols process is to wind down the insurance General American sold to MetLifefor $1.2 which the lawsuit claims was a “substantiallgy discounted sum.”