Stanford Ponzi Scheme Ensnares Golf Channel

The Golf Channel once received a hefty advertising and sponsorship fee – $5.9 million -from Stanford International Bank, likely because the bank was interested in reaching potential investors in the Golf Channel’s high-net worth audience, writes Levenfeld Pearlstein attorney Jason B. Hirsh, in an article about a recent Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals case. On March 11, that court ruled ruled that the entire amount must be turned over to the receiver for Stanford, which – long after the transaction with Golf Channel was concluded – was found to have been running one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history. The district court had rejected the receiver’s claim, saying that the Golf Channel “looks more like an innocent trade creditor than a salesman perpetrating and extending the Stanford Ponzi scheme,” but the Fifth Circuit didn’t see it that way. “The scope of those potentially at risk by this decision is mind-boggling,” Hirsh writes.