Former Bank of Saipan receiver Randall Fennell yesterday asked the Superior Court for indemnification in connection with the lawsuit filed against him by the bank.<\/p>\n
If the request is granted, the bank will shoulder the cost of Fennell\u2019s defense against the civil lawsuit being pursued by the bank against him.<\/p>\n
Fennell filed the indemnification claim following the request of incumbent bank receiver Antonio Muna for exoneration and termination of the receivership. Fennell asked that the receivership court retain jurisdiction over his indemnification claim, should the receivership be terminated.<\/p>\n
Fennell\u2019s attorney, Rexford Kosack, said the bank\u2019s lawsuit stemmed from his client\u2019s actions as the institution\u2019s temporary receiver. He said the lawsuit has now required Fennell to hire a legal counsel to defend him.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a receiver, he is entitled to indemnification of his attorney fees and costs from such litigation, depending upon the outcome of the matter. Mr. Fennell is filing this claim so that it will not be waived and asks the court to retain jurisdiction over the matter so it may be resolved at the appropriate time,\u201d Kosack said in a document submitted to court.<\/p>\n
Kosack also said that Muna had earlier made known his position that the bank should pay Fennell fees and costs due to \u201cstrong public policy\u201d and other grounds. Sometime in November last year, Muna expressed reluctance about the bank\u2019s litigation against Fennell, citing potential costs that the bank might incur in the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
But he said Muna\u2019s camp later retracted, particularly on Fennell\u2019s indemnification claim, with the bank\u2019s attorney\u2019s telling Fennell that it would not indemnify the former receiver.<\/p>\n
Kosack noted that Muna\u2019s camp had entered into an agreement with the bank regarding the receiver\u2019s exoneration and the termination of receivership.<\/p>\n
He said the agreement required Muna\u2019s camp to \u201cnot in any manner directly or indirectly cooperate with or assist any person\u2026asserting a\u2026defense against the bank as a party\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bank\u2019s board, through the law firm of David Mair, filed a civil complaint against Fennell and his attorneys in late September, accusing the defendants of breaching their fiduciary duties to the bank.<\/p>\n
The complaint seeks monetary damages against Fennell and the defendant attorneys, Richard Pierce and his former law firm, White, Pierce, Mailman & Nutting; and David Axelrod and his law firm Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt.<\/p>\n
The CNMI government, however, wants an end of the litigation, which it believes would just prove costly to the bank. But the Marianas Public Lands Authority, the bank\u2019s biggest single depositor, joined the suit and filed with the Superior Court a complaint against Fennell and his attorneys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Bank of Saipan receiver Randall Fennell yesterday asked the Superior Court for indemnification in connection with the lawsuit filed against him by the bank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94692\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}