O'Melveny says sorry for missing emails

O'Melveny & Myers has been left red-faced after being forced to apologise to a US bankruptcy judge for a discovery "mishap" in which the firm failed to turn over more than 700,000 emails to the bankruptcy examiner, writes The Recorder.

According to a report issued by the examiner last week, subprime lender New Century Financial and its outside restructuring attorneys at O'Melveny misled a bankruptcy examiner about funds that may belong to creditors.

The bank's outside counsel apologised to US Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey for the discovery failure and blamed an "outside vendor" for the problem in a filing made on 14 January.

"The debtors recognise that such errors, even if unavoidable in the context of such a process, cause inconvenience to participants in proceedings of this nature, and accept full responsibility," wrote O'Melveny lawyers Ben Logan and Suzzanne Uhland, along with local counsel in Delaware.

Bankruptcy examiner Michael Missal's report and O'Melveny's response were submitted to Carey last fall and unsealed last week (17 January).

Missal, a partner at Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis in Washington DC, said O'Melveny attorneys "were not forthright" in their dealings with him, causing the examiner to expend an additional $800,000 (£410,000) to sort out the mess.

That accusation stems from the bank's handling of cash in the bank's possession that may actually be the property of another party.

In response, O'Melveny said it had never provided the examiner with false information "nor did they ever intentionally or even negligently mislead him".

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