Anne Beaumont Comments to ValueWalk Regarding Andrew Caspersen Fraud

Friedman Kaplan partner Anne Beaumont was interviewed by Mark Melin of ValueWalk regarding the recently reported fraud by a partner at private equity firm PJT. Former PJT partner Andrew Caspersen has been charged by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission with securities and wire fraud in connection with a scheme to defraud investors, including a charitable foundation. Ms. Beaumont noted that, “this case is atypical in that the scheme seems to have been a fraud from the start. What we normally see in these types of frauds is a manager who runs a bona fide fund business, sustains some significant losses, and rather than own up to them, starts down the path of covering them up, hoping that the cover-up will only be temporary.  Eventually the whole thing becomes a fraud – but it doesn’t usually start out that way.”