$$$ Stumpf To Become Wells Chairman [WSJ]
$$$ John Thain might’ve lied about Stan O’Neal’s office gym [BI]
$$$ Josh Rosner on The Crisis [WSCS]
$$$ Goldman Bankers Seek Perfect Match [The Deal]
$$$ More from the ‘sensy‘ files: “Boville, 33, further claimed her male colleagues regularly subjected her to sexually charged come-ons and rude comments [such as], “Do the curtains match the carpet?” Male colleagues, the suit said, constantly referred to her “guns” for breasts and “wheels” for legs while propositioning her non-stop.” [NYP]

A day after the Amaranth clawback campaign kicked off, their target, Touradji Capital explained to their investors that the $350 million lawsuit against them is nothing but a misguided attempt to partially right a $6 billion wrong.

Amaranth’s action “is merely an offshoot of the frivolous litigation brought against the firm by two disgruntled former employees and one of their family members,” (Touradji CEO Gil) Caffray wrote.

So what if they’ve got a couple guys who think they’re still owed $25 million (each) in back pay. Gentry Beach and Rob Vollero must have bigger things on their mind than what allegedly went down with Amaranth and how much they might get one day in exchange for remembering some timely details, right?

In an April 15 deposition for the district court of Harris County, Texas, for the Playa case, Gentry Beach, citing his unidentified colleagues, said Paul Touradji signed a non-trade agreement with Amaranth so he could review their metals positions when Amaranth was shutting its fund during September and October 2006.
“From what I heard, Mr. Touradji then aggressively pressed these positions against them,” Beach said in the deposition.

Touradji Rejects Amaranth Claim, Says It Acted ‘Professionally’ [Bloomberg]

$$$ Hassan Nemazee charged in $290 million fraud [Reuters]
$$$ “In addition, Mr. Cioffi was executive producer of two independent films, including a 2006 vehicle for Rosie Perez and a movie called Follow the Prophet, which isn’t about the pursuit of money but, rather, a teenager escaping marriage to the leader of a polygamist cult. [Crain's]
$$$ Bank of America to Pay U.S. $425 Million to Remove Merrill Asset Guarantee [Bloomberg]
$$$ The Pandora’s Box of Wells Fargo and Commercial Real Estate [FT Alphaville]
$$$ 2 men charged with $80 million Ponzi scheme [AP]

After a three year, SEC-administered cavity search, the fund that made Brian Hunter and natural gas futures famous was given the all clear last month. The years of going back and forth with the SEC about where the ethical and legal lines in the sand are drawn seems to have left quite an impression. Amaranth is now going after Paul Touradji and some of his deputies for at least $350 million in connection with Touradji Capital’s alleged repeated breach of contract and misuse of proprietary information.

Amaranth says Touradji breached two contracts agreed to in September 2008 regarding the transfer and purchase of Amaranth’s base-metals portfolio, according to a complaint filed Sept. 18 in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan. Touradji and employees at Touradji Capital Management LP used the information “to recover profits obtained by defendants through improper trading practices and misuse of plaintiffs’ proprietary and confidential information,” according to the document.

So a major player in financial markets turns the table and goes on legal offense once the wolves get called off. If this is any guide, Bank of America is going to make Dick Bove look like the second coming of Nostradamus.
Amaranth Advisors Sues Touradji, Seeking at Least $350 Million [Bloomberg]
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Maybe! Former RBC Capital Markets trader Lindy Boville, pictured at left, claims her former employer fired her in March because she unwittingly dated a dude who turned out to be running a Ponzi scheme (James Nicholson, Westgate Capital). Not so says RBC! The Canadians counter the moose fister’s unfortunate taste in men had nothing to do with her termination, but rather that she showed “poor judgment” in not telling her bosses she was helping the bf raise money for his fund, leaving them to wonder what other “deals” she had going on the side. In a complaint filed today, Boville also says that before she was shown the door, she was (bizarrely) sexual harassed in a made up tongue.

She accused one co-worker of making comments about her legs, such as, “Did that dress shrink at the dry cleaners?” She accused another of using the made-up word “sensy” rather than “sexy” so that RBC’s monitoring system would not pick up his language.

RBC sued by trader who dated alleged Ponzi schemer [Reuters via BI]

With the addition of Edolphus Towns, there are now enough people waiting in line to take a crack at Ken Lewis about the Merrill merger that BAC’s directors are, reportedly, pulling out the binder with the contingency plan should Kenny be charged with civil fraud. They’ll have to decide how much and for how long they’re willing to resist the temptation to throw KL out the revolving doors that have found a permanent home in the Bank of America hierarchy. If things get dire, they may even have to consider who to turn to if Lewis goes. They’ll need somebody with a good sense of the organization. Somebody who knows how to handle the ongoing culture wars between BAC and Merrill Lynch. Somebody with a proven ability to get the absolute maximum for shareholders during a time of crisis. John Thain, you know anybody who sounds like that?
Report: BofA board considering options if CEO is charged with fraud [Jacksonville Business Journal]

Keeping pace with the growing legions who believe Wall St. firms are going to dodge the regulatory bullet and get back to their old ways, Moody’s evidently believes the end of the end-of-the-world panic is synonymous with sweeping the past couple of years under the rug. After the rating agency politely declined an invitation to appear at a panel put on by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners to answer a couple questions about their robust ratings process, the insurance community warned Moody’s that they plan to debate whether or not to formalize a movement many firms have already effectively embraced.

An official in the New York Insurance Department says insurance regulators from across the country are expected to discuss dropping Moody’s Investors Service from a list of acceptable rating organizations at a meeting later this week.

Hearing this, the Moody’s team decided it might be in their best interest to attend the session after all. That way there will really be no debate as to whether they’re an acceptable rating organization.

Having already moved the bailout repayment bar down three times since it went up a year ago, the latest thorn in Bank of America’s side, Edolphus Towns, wants to do his part to see new AIG CEO Bobby Benmosche succeed by further lowering the degree of difficulty involved in paying back the US taxpayer. Armed with a plan from former AIG captain Hank Greenberg, Towns is currently debating whether or not to approach the Beard and Timmy G with the plea to trim the government’s stake in the Pink Ladies’ favorite firm while also rethinking the interest rate and amount of time the firm has to pay back its safety net.
According to Towns, the critical thing to remember is that time is not the essence here. The massive rally in asset values over the past six months, while nice and all, is not enough to convince the good representative that AIG should sell what they can before they place the fate of the company in the debate between a V or W shaped recovery.

Towns said regulators have pressured AIG to liquidate the company at “fire-sale” prices. “What’s the rush if we can get a better return on our money a few years down the road and save a major company and thousands of jobs?” he said.

It seems there’s still a place in this world for speculators after all.