Credit Suisse Group AG was sued for more than $350 million by entities of Highland Capital Management LP who claim it marketed loans for high-end residential communities including the Yellowstone Club in Montana based on unreasonable and deceptive appraisals, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The dispute stems from dividend capitalization loans for Yellowstone, the Turtle Bay Resort in Hawaii, the Park Highlands Master Planned Community in North Las Vegas, Ginn Clubs & Resorts and Rhodes Homes, according to a court filing on July 16 in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan. The plaintiffs, Allenby LLC and Haygood LLC, were assigned the claims by managed investment funds that participated as lenders to the loans, according to the suit. They accused Zurich-based Credit Suisse of using “compliant stooges in two global appraisal firms” to overvalue the communities that secured the loans to persuade the lenders to invest.
