In-House Counsel
GC of Troubled Sallie Mae Resigns, Says He Wants to Spend Time With Family
Posted Feb 7, 2008, 09:04 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Sallie Mae’s general counsel Robert Lavet resigned at the end of January, in advance of two investor lawsuits against the student lender.
Lavet told Corporate Counsel he resigned to spend more time with his family. "Obviously it was a difficult year, but I just decided I needed some time off” for my family, he said. “I have a daughter who is graduating high school this year, and that's the whole story,"
The legal publication points out that Lavet’s resignation came just three days after the student lender settled with a buyout group that abandoned a bid to buy the company. It also came in advance of two investor lawsuits filed by law firms Brower Piven and Dreier.
A Dreier press release says the company failed to tell investors about the company’s loans to subprime borrowers attending nontraditional institutions.
In the Sallie Mae settlement, the lender agreed to drop its suit against the buyout group in exchange for a deal to refinance about $30 billion in debt due in February.
Last spring, Sallie Mae agreed to pay $2 million into a fund to educate students about their loan options to resolve an investigation into cozy relationships with universities by the New York attorney general.
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Comments
Posted by B.D.Weedsworth - 9 months, 2 weeks, 9 hours, 7 minutes ago
Poor yutz. Had a big job, but there was lots of trouble under his watch. Hopefully this will be the end of trouble for this guy. He probably went into this job thinking of all the prestige of being a GC and never knew he could wind up in the middle of a cesspool. He’ll be happier away from this. Hopefully no negative repecussions, either. Under Sarbanes Oxleey, I think Ive heard of trouble befalling GC’s who were on staff, even if they weren’t in the middle of the mess, they can be held accountabble. There was some big name lawyer at Tyco years ago whose reputation was shot, and all he did was take a few loans out. That guy used to be a big kahuna, and now, he is lower than a snake’s pitoot. Warning to the rest of the lawyers out there to be careful in who’s company they keep. Whew!