Riggs, PNC Settle Lawsuit Brought by Shareholders

By Terence O'Hara
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 4, 2005; Page E04

Riggs National Corp. and PNC Financial Services Group Inc. agreed to pay $2.7 million to shareholders to settle a class-action lawsuit against Riggs directors for failing to comply with anti-money-laundering laws.

Pittsburgh-based PNC plans to complete its acquisition of Riggs by the end of May. Once the merger is complete, PNC will pay the money to a fund to benefit all shareholders except the current and former directors named as defendants, including Riggs chairman and chief executive Robert L. Allbritton and his parents, former directors Joe L. and Barbara Allbritton.

The lawsuit was filed in Delaware Court of Chancery last April after regulators fined District-based Riggs $25 million for not complying with anti-money-laundering laws. A subsequent report by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee's permanent subcommittee on investigations, which detailed Riggs Bank's handling of money for Equatorial Guinea and former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, led to a $16 million fine and a felony guilty plea by the bank for failing to prevent possible money laundering.

The plaintiffs' lawyers in the shareholder lawsuit will ask the court for $1.1 million more, for legal fees and expenses, to be paid by PNC, the company said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5771-2005Mar3.html

By Terence O'Hara
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 3, 2005; Page E01

When Joe L. Allbritton was chief executive of Riggs Bank, he received personal gifts from Augusto Pinochet and wanted the former Chilean dictator to visit the Allbritton horse farm in Virginia, according to drafts of letters from 1996 and 1997.

The drafts were found in the bank's investigation of the relationship between Allbritton and Pinochet, whose government murdered or tortured an estimated 3,000 political opponents over 17 years. It could not be determined whether the letters were sent.

Joe L. Allbritton hoped to host Augusto Pinochet at his horse farm in Virginia, according to draft correspondence uncovered in the Riggs Bank investigation. (File Photo)

Riggs Bank pleaded guilty to a felony in January, in part because it failed to report many years of suspicious transactions involving Pinochet's accounts, which the bank closed in 2002. Allbritton was chairman and chief executive of Riggs until 2001.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2437-2005Mar2.html