Tricolor’s Founder Declines Over 100 Times to Discuss Its Demise

For five hours, lawyers for creditors pressed Daniel Chu again and again on Tuesday for details on the collapse of his subprime auto-loan business Tricolor Holdings.

And again and again, Chu, who faces federal fraud charges, declined to answer. In all, he asserted his Fifth Amendment right to avoid incriminating himself well over 100 times during the meeting.

Chu’s performance turned a routine question-and-answer session required in every big, corporate bankruptcy into a bitter confrontation between the embattled entrepreneur and a government-appointed trustee seeking to claw as much money from him as possible to repay Tricolor’s creditors.

“This was ...