Vice President of Wells Fargo May be on the Hook for Millions, How Does this Matter for a West Palm Beach Trustee of a Small Business?

If you are serving as a West Palm Beach personal representative or trustee  you may want to listen up. Do you know what the advice of counsel defense is? Parties may be able to shield liability by showing they were reasonably following the advice of competent counsel in West Palm Beach. A former Wells-Fargo vice president may have his back against a wall as he tried to use this defense, do you know why? The answer may surprise you and even effect your right to use this defense inFederal Courts throughout South Florida and West Palm Beach!

Advice of Counsel Defense

• What is the advice of counsel defense? 
• In order to understand it is important to have some context.
• Basically a trustee and to a lesser extent a personal representative in West Palm Beach has very serious decisions to make, decisions that could make or break the bank.
• We are talking about millions and millions of dollars here!
• One thing that you can do when you are unsure about what to do is  ask a specialist – an experienced West Palm Beach probate attorney.
• If you are relying in good faith on the advice of counsel you may be able to escapepersonal liability in a West Palm Beach lawsuit.
• Sounds great right?
• Not for one vice president of Wells Fargo in New York, and here is why.

No “Advice of Counsel Defense” in Wells Fargo Lawsuit

• Currently there are federal fraud claims being laid against an ex top vice president at Wells Fargo.
• That vice president claims that he was just following the advice of corporate counsel for his company. 
• In order to prove that defense though he needs the company to cooperate and they will not.
• Don’t forget he is an ex-VP.
• Wells-Fargo is claiming that the documents the former VP needs to prove his case are privileged by the attorney client privilege!
• Do you agree?
• This guy could be on the hook for tens of millions of dollars and he cannot prove his case because a corporation claims the evidence is privileged.
• Yesterday a federal judge in New York agreed!
• What is next?
• Now this VP is going to have to find a new defense as he finds himself the onlyindividual named in a lawsuit alleging thousands of loans were fraudulently depicted as qualifying for Federal insurance when they did not.
• The US attorney even admitted if the advice of counsel defense held up they had no case!
• Why does this matter for you as a trustee in West Palm Beach?
• As a trustee you may also find you are serving dual roles as an individual and officer of a trust.
• Can different trust assets (like a family company) keep you from breaching confidentiality in a West Palm Beach lawsuit?