SemGroup Files Suit Against Founders

NewsOn6.com

TULSA, OK -- A subsidiary of the SemGroup is suing it's co-founders for hundreds of millions of dollars and that subsidiary, has problems of its own on Wall Street.

SemGroup's been on the road to recovery ever since a New York City business man stepped in to clean up the books. That's the private sector, now the publicly traded division is in the limelight.

SemGroup LP has filed a lawsuit against two of the company's co founders.

The lawsuit filed in state of Delaware bankruptcy court Wednesday claims Tom Kivisto spent at least $362 million of SemGroup's money for his own trading.

The suit claims Kivisto received bonuses of more than $45 million and Gregory Wallace got more than $26 million without the approval of a management committee in the five years before SemGroup went bankrupt last summer.

Kivisto's attorney says the committee approved the bonus pool for each separate group.

SemGroup filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July and then ousted Kivisto, who was the company's CEO.

Wallace has taken a leave of absence from the company.

1/7/2009 Related story: SemGroup's Restructuring Hits Snag

SemGroup LP however managed to avoid bankruptcy, but now the publicly traded company won't be listed on the NASDAQ index starting on Friday.

NASDAQ says the subsidiary hasn't reported earnings to them since last May. SemGroup LP's stock fell another 27 cents Wednesday to $2.94. It traded as high as $29.50 within the past year.

SemGroup Energy Partners says it will try to get its stock relisted as soon as it makes sense.