Rothschild Added as Defendant In Lawsuit Against Radovan Vitek

Financial advisor Rothschild & Co. was sued in the U.S. for allegedly helping the Czech property billionaire Radovan Vitek secretly acquire controlling shares in a real-estate development company in what a New York hedge funds says amounted to a $1 billion fraud.

Rothschild helped Vitek quietly take control of Luxembourg-based Orco Property Group so the billionaire could strip it of its most valuable assets, according to an amended suit filed Nov. 22 in Manhattan by Kingstown Capital Management LP, which says it held a “substantial” stake in Orco.

Kingstown, which sued in April, said it added Rothschild as a defendant after obtaining details from a 2017 report on the matter by Luxembourg’s financial watchdog, the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier. The regulator investigated Vitek and an alleged co-conspirator, former Orco Chief Executive Officer Jean-François Ott, from 2012 to 2016, according to the new complaint.

Via: Bloomberg