Cleveland partner Brian Bash was quoted in the May 18, 2010, Akron Beacon Journal article, "Fair Finance Meeting Overflows with Investors."Bash is the court-appointed trustee in the bankruptcy of Fair Finance, a 76-year-old Akron, Ohio, based investment company which ceased doing business after an FBI raid in November 2009 with over $200 million owed on investment certificates. The focus of the article is a recent meeting of Fair Finance's investors, regarding the state of their investments and the bankruptcy proceedings.
Bash told the audiences he does not have access to information for the parent and affiliate companies of Fair Finance and related company Fair Holdings and said it is apparent that a large number of loans or investments from certificate holders were used to give out loans without collecting back from those other companies. Bash said he has sued to try to include all other companies, including Fair Holdings and an Indianapolis-based company called DC Investments.
In 2002, Tim Durham and Jim Cochran, two Indiana-based businessmen, bought the business from the Fair family, which had established the company decades before. During his presentation, Bash showed the crowd a slide of what he believed were Durham's personal loans, not including loans Durham gave from his companies. Those loans totaled about 15 different companies. "Timothy Durham has been a very busy person," Bash said. "He's got money out there and virtually all the money he used was derived from Fair Finance. That's where your certificate money has gone, we believe."
Bash said his responsibility was to recover money for investors through the bankruptcy proceedings and he didn't have a role in the criminal investigation. "I feel for you. I feel for all of you," Bash said. "I can't begin to tell you how much I can recover for you."