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APBOISE, Idaho (AP) -- Property owners at four struggling and bankrupt resorts in Idaho, Montana, Nevada and the Bahamas have filed a $24 billion federal lawsuit against Credit Suisse Group, saying the banking giant gave predatory loans to the resorts' investors as part of a scheme to take over the properties.
Property owners at Idaho's Tamarack Resort, the Yellowstone Club in Montana, Nevada's Lake Las Vegas resort and the Ginn Sur Mer Resort in the Bahamas contend that Credit Suisse set up a branch in the Cayman Islands to skirt U.S. federal bank regulations and appraised the resorts at artificially inflated values as part of a plan to foreclose.
A spokesman for the Switzerland-based bank, Duncan King, said the lawsuit is without merit and the company will fight the claims.
The lawsuit, filed in Boise's U.S. District Court on Sunday, seeks class-action status. The property owners, L.J. Gibson and Beau Blixseth, say they are filing the lawsuit on behalf of the thousands of people who bought property and homes at the resorts.
Gibson lives at Lake Las Vegas home and owns property at Tamarack Resort and Ginn sur Mer. Blixseth, the son of Yellowstone Club creator Tim Blixseth, owns property at the Yellowstone Club.
In the lawsuit, Gibson and Blixseth described a complex conspiracy dubbed "Loan to Own" that reads like a plot outline for a John Grisham novel.
First, they said, the money for the resort loans came from a separate fraudulent scheme to help Iranian banks dodge U.S. economic sanctions. That practice ended last month with Credit Suisse agreeing last month to pay $536 million to settle a U.S. Justice Department probe and admit to violating U.S. economic sanctions by hiding the booming Iranian business.
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http://finance.yahoo.com/news/24-billion-lawsuit-filed-apf-1602053254.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=2&asset=&ccode=
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