A legal brief signed by Bird Marella principal Jeremy Matz recently was quoted in an article by The Hollywood Reporter on the 1Malaysia Development Berhad forfeiture cases. The 1MDB forefeiture cases is the largest civil forfeiture litigation that has ever been brought by the United States Department of Justice’s Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative.
Bird Marella represents numerous claimants. In total, the Department of Justice has alleged that over $1.7 billion worth of assets were obtained through an international conspiracy to launder funds misappropriated from 1MDB, the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund. Bird Marella has filed claims in eight of the 1MDB cases to defend the legitimate interests of the legal owners of those assets, which include hotels and other high-end properties in Beverly Hills and New York, valuable music copyrights, and a Bombardier aircraft.
In March 2017, Bird Marella successfully defeated the government’s attempt to forfeit the assets by default, thereby protecting the claimants’ due process right to challenge the forfeiture actions.
To read the article, please click here.