CHICAGO Lake Shore Group of Cos. Inc. was ordered by a federal court to freeze the assets of 12 of its commodity pools and to open their books and records, said Dennis Holden, spokesman for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which filed the complaint against the firm.
A related CFTC complaint against Chicago-based hedge fund Lake Shore Asset Management and its president, Philip J. Baker, awaits adjudication. The CFTC alleges that Lake Shore Asset Management, Lake Shore Group and the commodity pools acted as a common enterprise. When the regulator posted the status of the case on its website on April 16, Mr. Bakers whereabouts were unknown, Mr. Holden said. Additional information on his whereabouts was unavailable.
In the default order in U.S. District Court in Chicago, the court found the managers of the commodity pools defrauded investors out of more than $11 million through misappropriation, misrepresentation of profits and losses and issuance of false statements. The court entered the order after the defendants failed to respond to the CFTCs second complaint against Mr. Baker and LSAM.