Mark Nordlicht

Nordlicht was born to a Jewish family[2] and raised on Long Island.[3] He graduated from Yeshiva University in 1990 with a B.A. in philosophy. With $11,000 saved from his bar mitzvah he started trading commodity options.[4][5]

Platinum Partners was formed in 2003 in New York City with Nordlicht as chief investment officer. It portrayed itself as having a knack for illiquid investments and had $1.7 billion in assets in its most recent filing. The investor mix consisted of institutional investors, family offices and ultra-high-net individuals.[6]

On December 19, 2016, federal agents arrested Nordlicht and six others on charges related to a $1 billion fraud that alleged that Nordlicht's firm operated "like a Ponzi scheme," according to prosecutors.[7][8] The indictment charged Nordlicht and his co-defendants with eight counts of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, investment adviser fraud, securities fraud conspiracy, investment adviser fraud conspiracy, and wire fraud conspiracy for defrauding investors through overvaluation of assets, concealment of severe cash flow problems at Platinum, and the preferential payment of redemptions.[9] Nordlicht's Platinum Partners management companies "projected stability and confidence" to current and prospective investors, reporting positive average returns of 17% from 2003 to 2015, according to a parallel civil lawsuit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission.[10][11] Included among the charges was manipulation of Black Elk Energy bonds.[12]

Nordlicht and the other five defendants all pleaded not guilty to the charges.[13] A trial date of April 15, 2019 has been set.[14]

Lawyers for Nordlicht argued in court and in a letter dated April 7, 2017 that an FBI agent may have leaked information about the investigation to the press before it became public. The letter cited news articles in Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post published in the summer of 2016 reporting that Platinum was under investigation.

Nordlicht's lawyers further argued that the leaks, and not the actions of Platinum's executives, may have been responsible for the damage to the value of Platinum's funds that caused harm to investors.[19]

The actions of Nordlicht have been defended as reflecting the difficulty of pricing futures in the energy sector, as well as the problem of leaks driving down price. In February 2017 the media outlet Newsmax reported:

The valuation of illiquid assets is frequently a topic of disagreement, controversy, and negotiation. The Platinum value arbitrage fund had energy-related assets whose value varied depending on the price of oil. At a certain point, the federal government itself starting driving down the value of Platinum's assets by leaking that the fund was under investigation. The idea underlying the Platinum value arbitrage fund — private equity illiquid assets in a structure with hedge fund liquidity — may have been too difficult to execute successfully even absent government interference. But having a bad investment idea, or a good idea poorly executed, doesn't usually warrant the criminal charges and 20 years in jail that the Platinum managers are facing. It's not supposed to be a crime to have a money-losing hedge fund, or even one that made money for a while and then lost some.[20]

Reporter Ira Stoll of New Boston Post said of the case:

The more one looks into this, the more it looks like the Platinum Partners prosecution is just the latest in a mounting and troubling pattern of examples in which New York-area federal prosecutors and FBI agents have jailed hedge fund managers or destroyed their businesses with publicized raids — only to have the charges eventually overturned by judges or never brought at all.[21]

Trial the case of USA v. Nordlicht, et. al. began on April 23, 2019 before U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan. The jury trial spanned nine weeks as defendants Mark Nordlicht and to other platinum executives invoked vaious defenses unveiling unruly subject matter purported by the prosecution, and can otherwise in rebuttals. The jury reached a mixed verdict on July 9, 2019.

The jury rejected the prosecution's keystone argument purporting the Platinum Partners fund operated "like a Ponzi scheme," finding all defendants not guilty on those five subject charges unanimously. The jury did find two defendants guilty on three counts relating to conspiracy and securities fraud in transactions relating to bondholders of oil exploration company Black Elk. Platinum's former CFO, Joseph SanFilippo, was exonerated and acquired of all charges in a unanimous not guilty verdict by the jury on every count.

Earlier in proceedings, the judge overseeing the case nixed the government's case as to the credibility of fraud claims, finding no clear anchor of fact or evidence limiting the government's scope in prosecution on the subject charges relating to fraudulent misrepresentation or falsely inflating asset values relating to the Platinum flagship fund.

After the announcement of the jury's findings in verdict, presiding Judge Brian Cogan granted the defense a request for a special motion to vacate the lesser guilty verdicts. The defense was granted by order to file motions challenging all remaining charges pertaining to the charges coinciding with the jury's guilty verdicts. In a final statement, Hon. Cogan affirmed "It's not over yet," insinuating a likely re-examination of subject matter related to the Black Elk guilty charges.

Nordlicht is married.[5] He lives in Westchester with his wife and children.[20]