MIAMI – A three-judge appeals court panel upheld sanctions by a federal judge in Miami in a case linked to disbarred Fort Lauderdale attorney Scott Rothstein's Ponzi scheme.
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U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke's sanctions against Toronto-Dominion Bank and Greenberg Traurig.
Coquina Investments was awarded $67 million in damages --$32 million in compensatory and $35 million in punitive.
"We perceive no abuse of discretion in the district court's rulings," Judge R. Lanier Anderson III said in the ruling that the Daily Business Review reported.
Coquina Investments accused TD Bank of misguiding investors about the safety of the funds involved in Rothstein's fraud. The company lost millions in the $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme -- the largest in Florida history.
Cooke sanctioned Canada's second largest lender and its law firm, for "negligently" failing to turn over documents to the Texas-based investment firm.
"The discovery violations in this case resulted in Coquina's diminished ability to prove that TD Bank's actions were unreasonable," Cooke said in the 30-page ruling.
Rothstein was serving a 50-year sentence for conspiracy to commit fraud.