Citigroup gets temporary freeze on brigade money in $900-million error

Citigroup Inc. scored court orders freezing almost half of the more than $900 million it says was accidentally sent to Revlon Inc. lenders this month.
 

A federal judge Wednesday froze $127.3 million that HPS Investment Partners LLC has refused to return and $109.7 million that Symphony Asset Management LLC is holding. The same judge on Tuesday issued a temporary order freezing $174.7 million that Brigade Capital Management LP has declined to give back.
 

Citigroup is suing all three, which together hold $411.7 million in Revlon debt. The bank had been acting as an agent on Revlon’s loan, collecting payments from the company to distribute to the creditors. Citigroup said it had intended to make interest payments on Revlon’s behalf but accidentally transferred a sum more than 100 times as big from its own funds. It has begun briefing watchdogs, including the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve, about how it mistakenly misdirected so much money, people familiar with the matter have said.
 

Representatives of HPS and Symphony declined to comment on Tuesday’s suit. Benjamin Finestone, a lawyer for Brigade and HPS, told the judge the firms don’t concede the transfer was a mistake, saying it appeared to be a “full payoff” of the loan.
 

“This mistake has not been explained to date,” Finestone said. “There is strong evidence, your honor, that this was in fact a payoff.”
 

For one thing, he said, the Aug. 11 date of the payment the bank says was interest on the loan was “odd,” as it wasn’t the usual interest payment date.
 

Brigade, which says it isn’t a Revlon lender itself, has told Furman it doesn’t have the $175 million. Citigroup wired payments to about 40 funds that use Brigade as their investment or collateral manager, it said Tuesday.
 

Neither of the two firms sued Tuesday has returned the payments after repeated emails and requests, Citigroup said in the suit. Their actions “threaten the integrity of the administrative agency function and trust in the global banking system,” the bank said.

“Many lenders are continuing to return Citibank’s money” over the past 24 hours, and the bank is “working closely” with others who are cooperating, Matthew Ingber, a lawyer for Citigroup, told U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman in a conference on Wednesday. He didn’t name any of the lenders he said are returning the funds.
 

Citigroup’s lawyer said at an earlier hearing that Brigade was the only one of dozens of lenders that has “flat out” refused to return the money. The two were back in court on Wednesday as the judge worked out the next steps in their legal battle, including whether to hold a hearing on the bank’s request for a preliminary injunction forcing Brigade to give the money back while the case proceeds.
 

Citigroup sued Brigade on Monday and then HPS and Symphony late Tuesday. Furman combined the two suits and scheduled a two-day trial to begin in late September.
 

“We were hoping we wouldn’t have to file this lawsuit against Brigade,” Ingber said when Furman asked him whether more litigation was coming. “We’re hopeful we don’t have to file any more lawsuits.”
 

The case is Citibank NA v. HPS Investment Partners LLC and Symphony Asset Management LLC, 20-cv-6617, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).