The
scheme provided SILVER with two different streams of unlawful income: (i) approximately $ 700,000 in kickbacks SILVER received by steering two real estate developers with business before the state legislature to a law
firm with which he was associated, and (ii) more
than $ 3 million in asbestos client referral fees SILVER received by, among
other official acts, awarding $ 500,000 in state grants to a university research center of a physician who referred patients made ill by asbestos to SILVER at Weitz & Luxenberg.
The Fifth Circuit said that the «banks [and brokerage
firms) owed no duty to the [investors]
other than the general duty not to engage in fraudulent
schemes or acts (that is, the duty not to break the law).»