Former Lazard banker Antonio Weiss, who became a key adviser to US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew after opponents fought his nomination to an official post, is running into more resistance advising on Puerto Rico’s debt crisis.
A coalition of liberal activists sent a letter to Weiss on Thursday suggesting his Wall Street ties present a conflict of interest and he should recuse himself from the debt negotiations.
Until last year, Weiss was head of investment banking at Lazard, which has a history of advising Puerto Rico on its municipal debt. That debt has now mushroomed to $73 billion, which the island’s governor said it can’t pay.
Lazard also advised US hedge funds to snap up the debt and has invested in some of the hedge funds that did so, according to the activists, led by Hedge Clippers and Rootstrikers, which target the moneyed elite.
Hedge funds including Blue Mountain, headed by former JPMorgan banker Andrew Feldstein, are battling Puerto Rico in the courts and fighting the commonwealth’s efforts to see US bankruptcy law extend to Puerto Rico.

“Given Lazard’s ties to the Puerto Rican debt crisis, your recusal is necessary to preserve the appearance of neutrality in Treasury’s actions,” according to the letter.

Coalition Letter to Antonio Weiss

Weiss withdrew his nomination as Treasury undersecretary earlier this year after liberal opponents, led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, said his years as a Wall Street dealmaker made him unsuitable for the job.
Weiss’s $21 million golden parachute from Lazard and his involvement in the Burger-King Tim Horton tax inversion deal also fueled opposition to his nomination, according to the activists.
Lew brought him aboard anyway but as a key adviser on domestic finance issues, including Puerto Rico’s debt woes.
“It’s outrageous for him to lead the Treasury’s response to the crisis he helped manufacture,” said Arturo Carmona, executive director of Presente.org, a Latino organization that is part of the coalition.
A Treasury official declined to comment on the letter. But President Obama has backed Lew in stating publicly that Puerto Rico should be included in the US bankruptcy law.
“By granting Puerto Rico access to an orderly bankruptcy regime as soon as possible, Congress can help put Puerto Rico — and the millions of US citizens who live there — on the best path to a sustained recovery,” the Treasury secretary said in a recent letter to Congress.