Charge Against Judge Breyer Minimized by White House

The White House, reacting Friday to a report that Supreme Court nominee Stephen G. Breyer ruled in cases in which he had major financial interests, declared its continued confidence in the Boston judge and said that it does not expect the charges to affect his nomination.

Breyer, who had as much $500,000 invested in the insurance conglomerate Lloyds of London in the mid to late 1980s, ruled in several cases that dealt with companies’ liability for the cleanup of Superfund sites, according to a report in Newsday.

The rulings may have affected the London firm’s exposure to liability in legal actions that involved Superfund sites, as well as in asbestos cases, the Newsday report suggested.

Legal ethicists responded with caution to the report. But Senate aides said it will almost certainly prompt a further look.

“Are alarm bells going off in the Senate? No,” said one Senate staff member. “Should people be concerned and will (the committee) inquire? Yes.”

Clinton Administration officials disputed the suggestion that Breyer issued rulings in cases where he knew his investments were at stake. The judge regularly disclosed his investment with Lloyds by filing public financial documents, officials said.

Additionally, officials said, Breyer “went far beyond what the rules require” by instructing the broker who placed his Lloyds investment to steer clear of units within the insurance group that had stakes in American tort liability.

Beyond those instructions, White House officials said, Breyer was not in a position to learn the firms his investments were used to underwrite. Thus, they said, he could not knowingly have ruled in cases where he had a personal financial stake.

Lloyds, one of the world’s largest and most prestigious insurance firms, is made up of “syndicates”--groups of investors who hope to reap returns when the insurance premiums collected are greater than the claims made against them.

White House Counsel Lloyd N. Cutler told Newsday that “there was no case to Judge Breyer’s knowledge where his syndicate or Lloyds itself had an interest in the particular case he was deciding.”