PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS LLP on Monday said it may seek a mistrial in a $US3 billion ($F6b) malpractice case over the collapse of Jon Corzine’s MF Global Holdings Ltd, saying it was blindsided when the plaintiff changed its theory of why the brokerage failed.
The auditor has been accused by MF Global’s bankruptcy administrator of accounting negligence that let the former New Jersey governor invest $US6.3b ($F13b) in European sovereign debt, leading to a liquidity crisis and an October 31, 2011 bankruptcy.
But PwC said the administrator has instead argued at a federal trial that began last Tuesday that Mr Corzine’s bet was sound, and that MF Global’s collapse was caused by market “confusion” and a “crisis of confidence” that was “somehow” the result of PwC’s accounting advice.
PwC urged US District Judge Victor Marrero in Manhattan to strike evidence and arguments supporting this theory, including from Mr Corzine, or else declare a mistrial.
The plaintiff’s lawyers “have clearly shifted their causation theory,” PwC’s lawyer, James Cusick, told the judge before Mr Corzine began his third and final day of testimony.
