If you’ve been following the turbulent times of the venture industry lately, you may have read a little bit about how some funds are attempting to recover previously disbursed funds from venture partners. These are called clawback provisions, a definition of which follows.

Excessive management share of profits that must be refunded to investors of a venture capital fund. A clawback is required when managers of a venture capital fund take a contractual share of early investment gains that are subsequently reduced by losses.

Flashback to the boom times circa 1999 with the Austin office of TL Ventures. Management of the Austin office was handled by Tivoli co-founder Bob Fabio, Stan Tims, and Stephen Andriole. Those folks are all gone from TL Ventures, but the firm still lives on.  Not only does it continue to operate, but it wants some of its money back. How much money? The fund would like $2.3M back from Fabio, we have no data for Stan Tims, and former principal Andriole is being asked for $253K. The trio is suing TL Ventures to avoid paying the money back.

Connie Loizos has a short piece on the Showdown in Texas. We’ll let you know if we see any other news reports.