Ex-Partner at S&C Gives up Law License over $500K in False Expenses
A former partner at Sullivan & Cromwell has resigned from the bar and admitted he submitted an estimated $500,000 or more in false expense reports to clients and the law firm.
Carlos Spinelli-Noseda, a banking and finance specialist in Latin American transactions, said the improper billing took place over a 10-year period ending this year, the New York Law Journal reports. He resigned from the firm in March.
In an affidavit (PDF posted by the New York Law Journal), Spinelli-Noseda said he billed personal expenses for travel and entertainment to clients and sometimes billed for first-class tickets on international flights while flying economy or business class. He did not identify the clients.
He also said he billed personal meals and travel expenses to his law firm, claiming they were for business development, and sometime billed for expenses never incurred.
Legal ethics professor Stephen Gillers of New York University law school told the New York Law Journal that such cases were “head scratchers” to experts in the field. “We don’t understand why anyone would jeopardize their position and achievements for what amounts to pocket change for partners at large American firms,” he said.
The dominant theory, he said, is that lawyers abusing expense accounts are possibly expressing anger about perceived unfairness in their law firm compensation or the greater wealth of clients.
