Harvard has been caught up in a legal case surrounding financial details of one of the world's wealthiest men who is also an alumnus of that institution.

A US court has ruled that Harvard must provide testimony and produce documents disclosing bank accounts, and other messages used by an alumnus, Charles Spackman, to send the university money, an affair shedding light on issues around flows of alleged illicit money and confidentiality of information.

The US District Court for the District of Massachusetts last week ordered the President and Fellows of Harvard College and Claire Spackman, a student at Harvard, to turn over financial records and testify regarding assets belonging to Spackman. Law firm Kobre & Kim applied successfully for an order to take discovery from them, that law firm said in a statement emailed to Family Wealth Report.

Kobre & Kim who represents the judgment creditor and Korean businessman Sang Cheol Woo, it said.

The saga highlights how organizations such as university endowments are having to face divulging financial information from donations of such benefactors.

Spackman founded a publicly traded company in Korea, Littauer Technologies, that had a onetime estimated worth of billions.But in 2000, this vanished virtually overnight after a transaction, allegedly perpetrated by Spackman, whereby Littauer purchased a “paper company” worth approximately $2.1 million, also controlled by Spackman, for $1.3 billion in company shares. The transaction allegedly enriched Spackman to the tune of $100 million, while Littauer stock plummeted and investors suffered billions in losses. A court later described the transaction as “an expedient financial scheme akin to fraudulent payment for shares", according to the statement.

South Korea authorities launched an investigation; Spackman is alleged to fled to Hong Kong.

Woo has been fighting for more than a decade to recover his losses, the statement continued.

In 2011, the Seoul High Court entered a judgment in the matter in favor of Woo, but Spackman has not yet paid any moneys, it said.

Spackman leads the Spackman Group, a global investment holding company with $1.5 billion under management.

A report by the New York Times on the case said a spokesperson for Harvard declined to comment.