In a court order issued this afternoon, U.S. District Judge David C. Godbey, assigned to the Stanford International Bank case in Texas, has ordered the receiver to release the remaining qualifying accounts by Aug. 3. Stanford receiver Ralph Janvey originally requested in his summary to the court a 10-week period in which to continue reviewing frozen investor accounts, but Godbey stated in his order that the “freeze has lasted long enough to permit the receiver to assess whether he has viable claims against the various individual investors, and that it is time now for those claims to be asserted and tested.”
Godbey said in the document that there was a concern for the financial hardship being impressed upon thousands of investors, especially considering the alleged “legal lack of justification for such a freeze.” Investors who spoke to the Business Report for a feature on Stanford said they were unsure how they were going to continue to make ends meet. Troy Lillie, an Exxon Mobil retiree, who was living day-to-day off his remaining company stock told the Business Report in an e-mail, “I leave Thursday morning to go work on an offshore oil rig. To read more about Stanford and local investors, read the recent Business Report cover story here.
Some Stanford accounts will still be frozen according to Godbey. Those include any former Stanford senior management, financial advisors or investors with outstanding debts to the estate. To read the full court order, click here.—Olivia Watkins
