CSFB: Oops! We erased our files Firm tells judge it erased 75 files that may be relevant to IPO lawsuit against it.
February 13, 2003: 9:56 AM EST
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Credit Suisse First Boston has told a federal judge it mistakenly erased over 75 electronic files that could be relevant to a civil class-action lawsuit over the handling of initial public offerings, according to a published report Thursday.
The Credit Suisse Group unit made the disclosure in a letter to a federal judge, saying the data on tapes was inadvertently taped over with new data, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The disclosure comes as CSFB's technology banker Frank Quattrone faces a federal obstruction-of-justice probe for urging members of his staff to purge their files of certain documents in December 2000, the Journal reported.
CSFB suspended Quattrone earlier this month pending an internal investigation of hot share offerings.
The letter, from an attorney from CSFB's outside law firm, said the monthly tapes, erased in a mix-up by information-technology employees, contained certain "documents, presentations spreadsheets" created between 1998 and 2000 within the firm's investment-banking division in New York and not printed and saved elsewhere, according to the report.
When contacted by CNNfn, CSFB said it "collected and retained a massive amount of information on the issue of IPO allocations during the government and regulatory investigations of this issue--none of which was affected by this inadvertent incident. Given the multiple sources of relevant material and the very limited amount of data inadvertently lost, we do not believe this incident will affect the quality of information available for discovery in this civil litigation."
The erased documents in question pertain to a massive class-action case against about 55 securities firms and more than 300 companies that issued shares in IPOs during the recent stock-market bubble, brought by investors alleging they overpaid for shares because the firms manipulated the companies' stock prices, the paper reported.
CSFB said in a statement to the Journal that it does not "believe this incident will affect the quality of information available for discovery in this civil litigation."
CSFB officials in New York were not immediately available for comment early Thursday morning. |
