A major gold depository, claiming Hurricane Sandy made bullion soup of its inventory, is suing its Financial District landlord.
Hundreds of millions of dollars in gold, platinum and palladium must be cleaned or melted down because the owners of 90 Broad St. did nothing to stop filthy floodwaters from inundating the firm’s basement vault, the suit alleges.
Manfra, Tordella & Brookes, a depository for the New York Mercantile Exchange-CME Group, wants $4 million from landlords 90 Broad LLC.
The dealer’s vault “filled with countless gallons of contaminated water” during the storm, causing severe damage to its “entire precious-metals inventory, worth hundreds of millions of dollars,” the suit says.
The treasure “must be replaced, reconditioned or cleaned” and, in some cases, “melted down and reissued,” the suit says.
Located in an evacuation zone, 90 Broad St. had flooded in prior storms, yet management merely told tenants to “close their windows” and “did not place any sandbags to protect any of the other entrances,” court documents allege.
Manfra says it lost more tahn $1.3 million in profits in the months following Sandy, as it was forced to relocate during its busiest season.
Reps for the landlord did not return repeated calls for comment.