The financial services unit of the American multinational conglomerate General Electric, GE Capital, has finally agreed to pay $49 million to a pair of Florida hedge funds to settle claims it was complicit in a convicted fraudster, Thomas Petters’ $3.65 billion Ponzi scheme.
A bankruptcy trustee working for those two Florida hedge funds lost $650 million when the Ponzi scheme was running full force in 2008. The trustee accused GE of co-conspiring, on grounds that the company remained silent in 2000 when its employees found out that Petters was operating the scheme.
The accusation is further aggravated by the fact the GE Capital was a lender to businesses controlled by Petters starting in 1998. When the Ponzi scheme was discovered, the company struck a deal for repairment and wrote a recommendation letter that Petters and his colleagues used to lure more investors and keep the Ponzi scheme going.