Mortgage Fund ‘08

Pearson, Simon & Warshaw, LLP represents the liquidating trustee of the Mortgage Fund ’08 (“MF ‘08”) Liquidating Trust (the “Trust”). The Trust was established in February 2012 pursuant to the Chapter 11 plan approved by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California. MF ’08 was a hard money real estate lender that raised funds through the issuance of promissory notes to investors. Between December 2007 and March 2009, MF ’08 raised over $80 million from investors.

As special litigation counsel for the trustee, PSW has brought lawsuits against Wells Fargo Capital Finance, persons who received MF ’08 funds in violation of California fraudulent conveyance statutes and legal professionals who represented MF ’08. The lawsuits generally allege that from 2007 through September 2011 the managers of MF ’08 wrongfully used monies raised from MF ’08 investors to keep other business entities controlled by those managers from failing. The trustee alleges that over $66 million of the over $80 million raised from MF ’08 investors was paid to the managers’ related business entities in violation of MF ‘08’s restrictions on such transfers. Wells Fargo is alleged to have aided and abetted the breach of fiduciary duty owed by MF ‘08’s former managers to MF ’08. The legal professionals are alleged to have also aided and abetted the MF ’08 managers’ fraud and breaches of fiduciary duty as well as commit professional negligence in their representation of MF ’08. Lawsuits are pending in the Alameda County Superior Court and in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California.

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