Texas tycoon Sam Wyly has filed for bankruptcy, saying that he does not have the assets to pay the nearly $300 million that U.S. regulators are demanding for his role in a fraudulent offshore scheme, Reuters reported yesterday. In documents filed with a U.S. bankruptcy court in Dallas on Sunday, Wyly said that he had between $100 million and $500 million of both assets and liabilities and cited the "massive costs" of fighting civil claims from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as the reason for seeking chapter 11 protection. Last month, U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin in New York ordered Wyly and the estate of his late brother Charles to pay damages of $187.7 million plus interest to the SEC after a jury found them liable for fraud in May. The SEC has since said that the total, including interest, should be $299.4 million, which is one of the largest awards ever sought from individual defendants in a U.S. court.
