Tourre Attorney: LEAVE FAB ALONE!

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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuit against Fabrice Tourre should be thrown out, lawyers for the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. trader accused of misleading investors in a product linked to subprime mortgages told a federal judge. Andrew Rhys Davies, Tourre’s lawyer, said yesterday that the SEC is trying to circumvent a U.S. Supreme Court ruling issued in June, Morrison v. National Australia Bank, that limits the reach of civil claims for acts occurring outside the U.S. “The SEC is attempting to do an end run around Morrison,” Rhys Davies told U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones in Manhattan. [Bloomberg]

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Goldman Sachs's former resident of fabulousness is going back to school. The Securities and Exchange Commission alleged in a 2010 complaint that Goldman Sachs and Fabrice Tourre, 33, who is on unpaid leave, defrauded investors in a collateralized debt obligation known as Abacus 2007-AC1. The regulator identified Tourre as a “resident of Kigali, Rwanda,” in court papers filed March 21 in Manhattan federal court. Tourre had been in the African nation’s capital working for a non-governmental organization before beginning his studies at the University of Chicago, according to a person familiar with his travels who declined to be identified because the matter isn’t public. “Tourre is a U.S. resident studying for a Ph.D. in economics at the University of Chicago,” his lawyer, Pamela Rogers Chepiga, said in a statement March 21. Steve Koppes, a university spokesman, said Tourre has been enrolled in the program since September. [Bloomberg]

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Three years after Fabrice Touree was sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly misleading investors, the (soon-to-be) Dr. of Economics and Love will go to trial, assuming finals don't pose a conflict. U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest in Manhattan set the July 15 trial date at the end of a hearing in which an SEC lawyer argued that she should reinstate some claims against Tourre that another judge dismissed earlier in the case. Last year, U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones threw out some of the SEC’s claims after Tourre argued that he couldn’t be held liable under U.S. securities law for transactions that occurred outside the country. The SEC argued today that the claims should be reinstated because of a recent appeals court ruling that applied a broader definition of “domestic securities transaction” than the one used by Jones. Tourre’s case was assigned to Forrest last week. Tourre, 33, who is studying for a Ph.D. in economics at the University of Chicago, wasn’t present in the courtroom today. His lawyer, Pamela Chepiga, told Forrest that she will check with her client to make sure there is no conflict between his exams and the trial date. Goldman Sachs’s Tourre Gets July 15 Trial Date [Bloomberg]

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