10-1666 & 10-1915 CFTC v. Lake Shore Asset Management, Ltd.

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Civil Procedure
Excusable neglect

Where a sophisticated bank failed to timely submit a claim after notification from the receiver of assets, the district court properly denied its untimely claim.

“Andbanc’s negligence went beyond the omission of Mora’s name on the account statement. Its casual assumption, when it learned that Lake Shore’s assets had been frozen, that it need do nothing in order to recover its share of the assets—an assumption based in part on the fantastic belief, for an Andorran bank to entertain, that Andorran and U.S. law coincide (the bank’s Andorran lawyer must have known that Andorran law is a compound of French, Spanish, Catalan, and even ancient Roman law, A.H. Angelo, ‘Andorra: Introduction to a Customary Legal System,’ 14 Am. J. Legal Hist. 95 (1970))—is inexcusable. Andbanc is not the corner grocery in which to buy cunillo, xai, or cocques; it is a sophisticated financial enterprise and one would think that having learned that millions of dollars that it had invested in a commodity pool were frozen as a result of a criminal investigation, it would designate one of its financial officers to keep tabs on the matter.”

Affirmed.

10-1666 & 10-1915 CFTC v. Lake Shore Asset Management, Ltd.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Manning, J., Posner, J.

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