Atlanta City Hall. (Photo: John Disney/ALM)Atlanta Fires Back at Morgan Lewis With New Lawsuit in Pension Fight
The lawsuit focuses on payments to Morgan Lewis from two pension funds the firm represents in litigation against the city.
February 09, 2018 at 06:31 PM
3 minute read
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius represents two pension funds in their lawsuit against the city of Atlanta, but this week the city took the firm to court over how it's being paid.
The city's lawsuit, filed Thursday in Fulton County Superior Court, alleges the firm assisted the chairs of the General Employees' Pension Fund Board of Trustees and the Police Officers' Pension Fund Board of Trustees in withdrawing nearly $1 million in pension assets to pay for their own ongoing lawsuit against the city. The funds sued the city late last year over an ordinance that consolidated the two, as well as a third that is not party to the lawsuit.
“The city recently became aware that hundreds of thousands of dollars were removed from the [General Employees' Pension Plan] and paid to Morgan Lewis in connection with legal challenges to the ordinances, including the evaluation, development, preparation, and filing of the litigation,” the lawsuit said.
A spokeswoman for Morgan Lewis declined to comment.
Atlanta is represented by city lawyers as well as Baker & Hostetler's S. Derek Bauer, Ian Byrnside and Jacqueline Menk. Bauer and Byrnside were also involved in an open-records suit that prompted investigations into the USA Gymnastics team.
The other defendants include the two chairs of the funds as well as Zenith American Solutions, a Maryland administration services company. The city seeks an injunction against the firm and Zenith on the grounds that both are “direct or indirect” custodians of the plan assets.
The lawsuit claims the litigation over the ordinance is “primarily for the benefit, and to promote the personal interests of, certain individual trustees.” The use of fund assets to finance the litigation, the lawsuit contends, violates the chairs' fiduciary duties to the city, taxpayers and plan participants.
The lawsuit asks for a permanent injunction ordering the defendants to provide records of the money removed from the plans for the litigation, to return money taken, and blocking the chairs from using funds for litigation.
Read the lawsuit here:
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