Myatt took those lessons with her in
1988 to the Greensboro firm of Adams
Kleemeier Hagan Hannah & Fouts, which
merged with Nexsen Pruet in 2004. She’s
been there ever since, often working for
banks and financial institutions on real
estate, construction and tax-credit lending
transactions, and in workouts, debt
restructuring and bankruptcy.
Of her interesting cases, SEC v.
Elfindepan, S.A., et al. stands out. In 2001,
she was appointed as the receiver to
pursue funds and assets of Elfindepan,
S.A., a company set up by Tracy Calvin
Dunlap Jr. Dunlap managed to get more
than 2,000 U.S. and foreign individuals
to invest more than $42 million in
Elfindepan’s elaborate Ponzi scheme that
stretched from the U.S. to Costa Rica.
Dunlap, who was originally from
Stoneville, just north of Greensboro,
targeted elderly individuals, religious
organizations and others. “Dunlap used
backroom [unregistered] offerings:
‘Invest your money and I’ll give you a
return of 12 to 15 percent,’” Myatt says.
“Purported profits were reflected on the
investors’ debit cards set up by Costa
Rican banks so that investors could avoid
paying U.S. taxes.”
“He also told some investors the money
was to be invested in charitable projects
in Third World countries, backed by the
World Bank,” she adds. In reality, most of
the money went to Dunlap, other investors
and third-party brokers as commissions.
In an unusual twist, Dunlap invested $8
million of the proceeds in another scam. “I
chased the $8 million, too, and got some
of it,” Myatt says, noting that she went to
Australia and New Zealand to meet with
investors in tracking the proceeds related
to the second scam.
It wasn’t an easy case. Beginning in
2001, Myatt devoted a majority of her time
to that case for more than two years. She
traced approximately $1 million held in
various banks in Costa Rica and traveled
there to recover the funds. “The day I
arrived [in Costa Rica] to also obtain copies
of the company’s books and records, I
found out that the office had purportedly
been broken into and the books stolen,”
she says. The missing records meant that
Myatt couldn’t determine what happened
to all of the investors’ funds. However,
Myatt was able to recover approximately
$1 million in Costa Rica and more than $5
million in the U.S. so that she was able to
make a 25 percent distribution back to the
investors. Dunlap is now serving a 27-year
sentence in federal prison after being
convicted in a separate criminal case.
Another big case for Myatt began in
2004, at 3: 30 p.m. on a Friday, when she
received a call from a lender’s counsel in
New York. Would she represent the lender
at a Winston-Salem hearing that day?
“Yes,” Myatt replied, hustling off to court in
Winston-Salem, about 35 miles away.
The owners of EZ Convenience Stores
had filed Chapter 11, locked the doors of
more than 450 locations in the Southeast
and walked way. “[Because they were mad
at the lender] they essentially said, ‘Here
are the keys,’” Myatt recalls. The lender,
whom she represented, had a lien on all of
the real estate and leasehold interests, and
was owed more than $130 million.
Replete with merchandise, including
gasoline, perishables and ATM machines,
the stores were an immediate concern for
the lender. “That first weekend, there were
several break-ins,” Myatt says. “Many of the
stores had plate-glass fronts.”
Over the next two weeks, Myatt provided
assistance in getting the locations
secured. Another company had a lien on
the remaining merchandise and most of
the perishables were tossed out. Within
30 days, she had a trustee appointed to
liquidate the properties, equipment and
other assets. Within 90 days, the trustee
sold the properties at a national auction
through a Chicago company.
“By handling the property sales through
the bankruptcy, the lender was able to sell
the properties in an orderly fashion rather
than foreclosing on each one in each of
several states,” Myatt says, noting that
the foreclosure process would have taken
much longer and cost significantly more to
the lender. The downfall of the store chain,
incidentally, came from expanding too
quickly, she says.
“Christy has great instincts—good gut
feelings,” says Nexsen Pruet partner Ben
Kahn. “There may be one answer to a
situation legally, but she’ll look at it and
use her common sense … which helps head
off issues before they become issues.”
In the mid-2000s, Myatt also worked
to resolve issues related to a Greensboro-
based construction firm that ran into
financial problems on 1 1 different building
projects in the Southeast. Greensboro
natives and former pro football players, Jeff
and Joe Bostic, were financial guarantors
and investors in many of the projects. They
hired Myatt to determine the cause of the
financial bleeding and to try to save the
projects. The brothers faced $100 million in
combined liabilities.
click on video icon
MYATT ON THE PONZI
SCHEME CASE THAT TOOK
HER AROUND THE WORLD
