US Judge Samuel Alito defends fishing trip with billionaire Paul Singer

US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has insisted he had “no obligation” to recuse himself from cases involving a hedge-fund billionaire who paid a judge to go fishing in Alaska on a private jet. did.

The undeclared hospitality offered by Paul Singer, a prominent conservative fund manager who has won favorable rulings from the court, is the latest in a series of propriety questions casting a shadow over the US Supreme Court.

Alito accepted Singer’s offer to join him on a luxury fishing trip at an Alaskan salmon lodge in 2008, then did not announce the trip or airfare, according to a US report. news organization ProPublica,

Alito, six years later, voted in favor of a fund affiliated with Singer in Argentine Republic v. NML Capital, a landmark case on Argentine debt restructuring that ultimately generated billions for the hedge fund.

ProPublica questions Alito, but instead of answering, the judge writes an opinion piece The Wall Street Journal denied any wrongdoing in the arrangements and claimed that ProPublica “misled its readers” with an article that had not yet been published.

He argued that Singer’s acceptance of a seat on a private flight to Alaska, which the judge claimed “would otherwise have been empty”, was a low-cost option and fell under the “personal hospitality” exception to disclosure. Went.

The revelations came after ProPublica reported in April that another Supreme Court justice, Clarence Thomas, failed to disclose decades of gifts and luxury travel from another billionaire Republican donor, Harlan Crowe.

Thomas claimed at the time that he was not bound to disclose hospitality and gifts from “close personal friends who had no business before the court”.

Singer is the founder and chairman of the conservative activist hedge fund Elliott Management. The fund is known for its aggressive, often litigious, campaigns to get its investments paid back. Elliott’s strategy has included ousting CEOs and challenging governments such as South Korea and Argentina in the courts.

Elliott Management, a hedge fund affiliated with NML, was one of the so-called “vulture investors” that bought distressed Argentine sovereign debt at a discount in the early 2000s in an attempt to force the country to repay it in full.

In 2014 the US Supreme Court ruled 7–1 against Argentina’s claim of sovereign immunity and upheld a previous ruling that allowed the NML to pursue the debtor nation for the full amount owed. Justice Alito voted with the majority.

According to ProPublica, Singer’s hedge fund appeared before the US Supreme Court “at least 10 times” in the years following the Alaska trip. Most recently in 2019 the court declined to intervene in a dispute between a utility company and Singer’s fund. A request by a bank for court intervention in another dispute with the fund is still pending.

“In none of the cases cited by ProPublica, I was under no obligation to decline. First, even though I was aware of Mr. Singer’s ties to the entities involved in those cases, I reiterate would not be necessary or appropriate,” Alito wrote in response to the allegations.

Singer did not immediately respond for comment. His spokesperson told ProPublica that Singer “never discussed his business interests” with Alito and at the time of the visit in 2008.

The United States Judicial Conference, which sets policy for the country’s federal courts, adopted stricter rules earlier this year, requiring justices to disclose more of their activities, including travel by private jets and stays at hotels and resorts. was needed. Stays in individual vacation homes, however, remain exempt from reporting requirements.