FHB denies receiving Mayor Flores’ $200,000 TCD

First Hawaiian Bank has denied that it received Saipan Mayor Donald G. Flores’ $200,000, the amount that he claims he purchased in 1993 for a certificate of deposit from the defunct Union Bank.

Attorney Richard L. Johnson, counsel for FHB, said the bank twice wrote to Flores’ counsel denying that it ever received his $200,000.

In arguments to dismiss Flores’ lawsuit, Johnson said that Rene Chinen, then FHB vice president and a member of the in-house legal department, wrote a letter on Aug. 25, 2009, to then Flores’ counsel, Jesus Borja.

In that letter, Johnson said, Chinen advised Borja that the “trial balance” report for all Union Bank of California accounts transferred from Union Bank to FHB showed only a checking account for Flores, not a certificate of deposit.

Johnson said that in a subsequent letter dated July 13, 2011, to Flores’ current counsel, Juan T. Lizama, Chinen, now a senior vice president at FHB, against explained that the certificate of deposit was not in the report, meaning that FHB did not purchase the account from Union Bank.

The FHB lawyer said that all Flores knows is that he purchased a one month certificate of deposit in 1993, and that neither Union nor First Hawaiian have given him any money for it.

Johnson said that Flores does not know whether the certificate of deposit was included in the sale of Union’s assets for First Hawaiian in 2001 or which bank now “has his money,” though FHB has advised him at least twice that it did not purchase his account from Union and even offered to provide information to Union that would show this issue is between Union and Flores.

“From these facts, [Flores] has concocted against First Hawaiian claims of breach of contract, unjust enrichment, negligence, breach of fiduciary duty and fraud,” the lawyer said.

Flores states in his complaint that he understood that the certificate of deposit would automatically be renewed by Union and that he planned to allow it to be renewed as a long term investment.

Johnson said it is common knowledge that the interest rate on certificates of deposit generally increases with the length of the term of the certificate.

“If, as he states in his complaint, he purchased the CD as a long term investment to be rolled over, month after month, year after year, it is not plausible that plaintiff would have purchased a CD that matured in 32 days,” the lawyer noted.

Instead, Johnson said, any reasonable person purchasing a certificate of deposit as a long term investment would have purchased a CD with a longer maturity rate.

“The allegation that plaintiff purchased a 32-day TCD for that purpose is not plausible,” the lawyer added.

Flores is suing Union Bank of California and FHB.

In his complaint, Flores said that he purchased the CD in the principal amount of $200,000 that was issued in his name by the Saipan branch of Union Bank on Sept. 10, 1993. Lizama said his client kept the issued certificate with the intent of eventually redeeming it.

On Nov. 15, 2001, Union Bank sold all assets and liabilities of its Saipan branch office to FHB.

Flores, through Lizama, asserted that the record of his time certificate of deposit could not have disappeared without any negligence or its intentional destruction.

Union Bank of California had joined FHB’s motion to dismiss Flores’ lawsuit.