Deloitte and Banks to Pay $455 Million to Adelphia Investors

The auditor Deloitte & Touche, Bank of America and 38 other banks have agreed to pay a total of $455 million to settle a lawsuit with investors in Adelphia Communications, the bankrupt cable television company.
Deloitte & Touche will pay $210 million and the banks will pay $245 million under a settlement approved Nov. 10 by Judge Lawrence McKenna of Federal District Court in New York. The amount each bank owes is confidential. Adelphia filed for bankruptcy in 2002 after an accounting fraud that led to the criminal convictions of its founder, John J. Rigas, and his son Timothy.
Investors had claimed losses as high as $5.5 billion, saying that Deloitte & Touche and the banks contributed to the fraud. Adelphia sold its cable properties to Comcast and Time Warner for $16.7 billion in July.