Macquarie Capital Group Ltd. and its lawyers at Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman want Morrison & Foerster to share the blame for the Australian investment bank’s ill-fated entanglement with defunct Chinese company Puda Coal Inc. But first they’ll have to convince a skeptical New York judge.
According to her comments Wednesday during a hearing on Morrison & Foerster’s motion to dismiss legal malpractice claims, New York State Supreme Court Justice Saliann Scarpulla isn’t ready to let Macquarie blame MoFo for its decision to underwrite a fraudulent U.S. stock offering by Puda in late 2010. But the judge also didn’t seem ready to toss the case, challenging the law firm’s outside lawyers at Williams & Connolly to explain why MoFo shouldn’t share liability for Macquarie’s due diligence failures.
