James Lawless IV

An action in New York to hold Goldman Sachs and several former officers and directors of Bermuda-based Stirling Cooke Brown Holdings Ltd. liable for allegedly "squandering" $80 million of the fraudulently-operated insurance broker's corporate assets has failed. On February 19, 2008, Chief U. S. Bankruptcy Judge Stuart M. Bernstein dismissed all of the core counts alleging fraud and breach of fiduciary duty against the Goldman Sachs and the D&O defendants in a complaint brought by the group's Bankruptcy Trustee, Richard O'Connell, at the U. S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.