A federal appeals court said that billionaire Ira Rennert must pay a $213.2 million judgment after a jury found him liable for looting his now-defunct magnesium company to build one of the country's most expensive homes, a 21-bedroom mansion in New York's Hamptons, Reuters reported yesterday. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit yesterday let stand a jury verdict against the mining mogul and his holding company Renco Group Inc., and won by a trustee liquidating the bankrupt Magnesium Corp. of America, known as MagCorp. It rejected Rennert's argument that the jury rendered an "irrational" verdict by awarding damages despite believing MagCorp was solvent at all relevant times. Rennert belatedly challenged whether the verdict was internally inconsistent, and "cannot pursue a compromise-verdict claim because that would sneak a waived inconsistency claim in through the back door," the Manhattan-based appeals court said. The court also rejected Rennert's argument that the trustee was not entitled to a jury trial, and that the trial judge made multiple errors.
