2019

EXCERPT FROM Strategies for Asset Recovery from Mainland China

BY HENRY W. LONGLEY | TEMPLE INT’L & COMP. L.J.

A. Sino Clean Energy, Inc. v. Seiden—Corporate Governance Strategy in Action

In May 2014, a Nevada state court appointed Robert Seiden, Esquire,(171) the receiver of Sino Clean Energy, Inc. (Sino), after a group of U.S. investors requested the appointment when Sino went dark and caused economic losses.(172) Sino is a Chinese Reverse Merger holding firm incorporated in Nevada with subsidiaries in Mainland China that produce coal-water slurry.(173) The Sino bankruptcy case synthesizes the corporate governance strategy in the Chinese Reverse Merger context and shows some of the more creative techniques a receiver can employ when former firm insiders meddle with the recovery process.

In May 2015, the receiver filed criminal charges with H.K. police alleging that Sino’s chairman, Baowen Ren, fraudulently backdated a transfer of shares in Sino’s H.K. subsidiary to a British Virgin Islands firm that Ren controlled—pilfering Sino and its shareholders—without the receiver’s permission or knowledge.(174) Despite attempts by the receiver’s agents to resolve issues with Ren, Ren refused to settle or comply with the court’s receivership orders.(175)

In 2014, the court-appointed receiver installed a new board of directors at the Sino holding firm in Nevada.(176) Soon after, however, former board members, acting by and through Ren, filed a Chapter 11 petition for bankruptcy on behalf of the firm.(177) The receiver, Seiden, moved to dismiss, and the bankruptcy court granted the motion—a decision the former Sino directors later appealed.(178) In the Chinese Reverse Merger context, in addition to establishing board control over the U.S.- based holding firm, controlling the board of the operating firm in China allows the receiver to go into Mainland China as the legal owner of operating assets “standing in the shoes of the company.”(179) Accordingly, before January 2015, the Nevada court-appointed receiver reported removal and replacement of the board of directors of Sino’s operating firm in Mainland China with an American chairman.(180)

In February 2016, a Nevada district court judge overseeing the same action held Ren in criminal contempt for repeatedly violating its receivership orders.(181) In addition to an outstanding civil per diem penalty of $500 ordered in June 2015, the court ordered a bench warrant to imprison Ren for his contempt.(182) The court ordered Ren to be jailed until he transferred Sino’s official corporate seal, known as a “chop,”(183) to the receiver.(184) The court also held Ren’s illegal transfer of Sino’s assets to be invalid.(185) The receiver stated that the bench warrant would be sent to Interpol in Beijing, along with a request for assistance from Chinese authorities to arrest Ren.(186)

Meanwhile, the ongoing bankruptcy case against Sino also affected its existing contractual liability. The appointment of a receiver can change who possesses control over a firm, but it does not affect the corporate existence of a firm, which means the firm continues to be liable for its existing contracts after the appointment of a receiver.(187) According to the January 2015 report, the receiver communicated with Sino’s suppliers, business partners, and its customers around the globe, contacted Sino’s Chinese banks to change signatories and gain control over accounts, put in place an interim management team to run day-to-day operations, and selected an independent auditor to advise on the economic state of Sino and its subsidiaries.(188)

In Sino Clean Energy, Inc. v. Seiden, former directors of Sino appealed the dismissal of their 2015 bankruptcy petition—arguing that federal bankruptcy law preempts a receiver appointed under state law from barring a corporation from filing for bankruptcy.(189) In January 2017, the Court affirmed the bankruptcy court’s dismissal because appellants did not have authority to file for bankruptcy on behalf of Sino at the time of the petition. (190)

The court found the appellants’ argument unpersuasive because the receiver removed appellants in 2014—installing a new board of directors more than a year before appellants filed their bankruptcy petition in 2015.(191) The court’s order did not affect a corporation’s right to file for bankruptcy but prevented a former board of directors from filing by holding that only a corporation’s current board of directors can file for bankruptcy.(192) The district court’s decision demonstrates that a courtappointed receiver is unequivocally empowered to reconstruct the board of directors of a Chinese Reverse Merger holding firm based in the United States. Moreover, the Sino Clean Energy, Inc. saga shows that a court-appointed receiver with control of a Chinese Reverse Merger corporate structure can capably affect its Mainland China-based management at the operating business level as well.(193)

______________________________________________________________________________

171. THE SEIDEN GROUP, supra note 134 (detailing that Seiden has vast experience with integrity monitoring and has been appointed receiver over twenty times in the United States); see also Stevenson & Goldstein, supra note 33 (“Robert W. Seiden is a Wall Street bounty hunter. He tracks down executives of Chinese companies that listed on stock exchanges in the United States and then blew up.”).

172. Sino Clean Energy Inc. v. Seiden, 565 B.R. 677, 679–80 (D. Nev. 2017); BVI Shell Company Allegedly Used to Steal US and Chinese Shareholder Interests in Energy Firm, CARIBBEAN NEWS NOW! (June 26, 2015), https://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/2015/06/26/bvishell-company-allegedly-used-to-steal-us-and-chinese-shareholder-interests-in-energy-firm/.

173. Sino Clean Energy Inc., 565 B.R. at 679–80; Sino Clean Energy, Inc. Prospectus, NASDAQ (Dec. 21, 2010), https://www.nasdaq.com/markets/spos/filing.ashx?filingid=7820499; see BVI Shell Company Allegedly Used to Steal US and Chinese Shareholder Interests in Energy Firm, supra note 172 (describing the corporate structure of Sino Clean Energy); see also Markus Aarnio, Sino Clean Energy Poised to Double Production Capacity in 2012, SEEKING ALPHA (Jan. 15, 2012, 7:45 AM), https://seekingalpha.com/article/319701-sino-clean-energy-poised-to-doubleproduction-capacity-in-2012 (describing Sino Clean Energy as the fifth largest producer of coalwater slurry fuel by sales in China).

174. BVI Shell Company Allegedly Used to Steal US and Chinese Shareholder Interests in Energy Firm, supra note 172.

175. Id.

176. Written Consent, supra note 168.

177. Sino Clean Energy Inc., 565 B.R. at 680.

178. Id.

179. Michael Rapoport, Court Appointee Chases (and Finds) Investor Cash that Vanished in China, WALL ST. J. (June 21, 2015, 4:28 PM), https://www.wsj.com/articles/court-appointeechases-and-finds-investor-cash-that-vanished-in-china-1434918506.

180. U.S. Court-appointed Receiver for Sino Clean Energy Inc. (Nasdaq “SCEI”) Taking Control of Chinese Company, PR NEWSWIRE (Jan. 25, 2015), https://www.prnewswire.com/newsreleases/us-court-appointed-receiver-for-sino-clean-energy-inc-nasdaq-scei-taking-control-ofchinese-company-300018796.html.

181. U.S. Court Orders China Businessman Jailed for Defying Court-Appointed Receiver and Judge’s Order to Cede Control of the Company to the Receiver, PR NEWSWIRE (Feb. 29, 2016), https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/us-court-orders-china-businessman-jailed-fordefying-court-appointed-receiver-and-judges-order-to-cede-control-of-the-company-to-thereceiver-300228158.html.

182. Id.

183. Dezan Shira & Assocs., Company Chops in China: What are They and How to Use Them, CHINA BRIEFING (May 10, 2017), http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2017/05/10/use-ofcompany-chops-in-china.html (explaining that “the chop” is mandatory to do business in Mainland China and functions as the company’s official signature).

184. U.S. Court Orders China Businessman Jailed for Defying Court-Appointed Receiver and Judge’s Order to Cede Control of the Company to the Receiver, supra note 181.

185. Id.

186. Id.

187. British Virgin Islands—Restructuring and Insolvency, OGIER (Nov. 4, 2013), www.ogier.com/publications/british-virgin-islands-restructuring-and-insolvency.

188. U.S. Court-appointed Receiver for Sino Clean Energy Inc. (Nasdaq “SCEI”) Taking Control of Chinese Company, supra note 180. 

189. Sino Clean Energy Inc. v. Seiden, 565 B.R. 677, 679 (D. Nev. 2017).

190. See id. at 681, 683 (finding that Nevada law gives a corporation’s current board of directors exclusive power to file for bankruptcy); see also Richard Levin, Recent Developments in Bankruptcy Law, JENNER & BLOCK ¶ 4.1.a (July 2017), https://jenner.com/system/assets/assets/10294/original/Recent%20Developments%20in%20Bankr uptcy%20Law%20-%20July%202017.pdf (“State law here authorizes the current directors to authorize a filing.”).

191. Sino Clean Energy, 565 B.R. at 681.

192. Id. at 677; Levin, supra note 190.

193. See generally U.S. Court-appointed Receiver for Sino Clean Energy Inc. (Nasdaq “SCEI”) Taking Control of Chinese Company, supra note 180.

A Wine Ponzi Scheme Targeted New York’s Most Powerful Enophiles, Clients Allege

BY MITCH FRANK | Wine Spectator

Omar Khan organized dinners with top chefs and rare vintage wines. Now several clients allege that he’s a fraud who took their money

Sep 9, 2019:

For wine lovers and executives, the dinners were sorely tempting: dishes cooked by some of the world’s top chefs (Daniel Boulud, Tom Colicchio, Daniel Humm), paired with some of the rarest wines in the world (Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Cheval-Blanc, Dom Pérignon) and featuring business-savvy speakers. Since 2013, the International Business & Wine Society (IB&WS) has offered members monthly dinners paired with lectures and chats with leading business minds.

Was it all an elaborate Ponzi scheme? The organization’s founder, Omar Khan, stands accused of taking money from investors and wine retailers to make the dinners happen and pocketing it instead.

Last week, 13 disgruntled clients filed a suit against Khan in New York state court, alleging fraud, misrepresentation, unjust enrichment and five other counts. They claim he owes them more than $8.3 million. Several other lawsuits are pending against Khan, the IB&WS and his other company, Sensei International, including one from a Burgundy hotelier and another from a wine retailer in Putnam County, New York.

“I was a prosecutor for 11 years and have been a lawyer for 30 years and I’ve never seen such a brazen example of a con man taking advantage of decent hardworking people”

Robert Seiden, Seiden Law Group

“I was a prosecutor for 11 years and have been a lawyer for 30 years and I’ve never seen such a brazen example of a con man taking advantage of decent hardworking people,” Robert Seiden of the Seiden Law Group, which is representing the 13 clients in the suit filed on Sept. 3, told Wine Spectator. “This guy is like a micro-Madoff. He engaged in a multi-year scheme to defraud people in return for entry into the global wine world.”

Seiden’s clients include several high-powered names in finance: Robert Van Brugge, CEO and chairman of Sanford C. Bernstein; Kresimir Penavic of hedge fund Renaissance Capital; Peter Slagowitz, CEO of Spurs Capital; Lorine Schaefer, vice president at Morgan Stanley; as well as Robert Gelfond, director of the Cato Institute, a conservative think tank. Charles Curtis, former head of wine for Christie’s in both Asia and the Americas, is also a plaintiff. According to the suit, Khan hired him as a consultant, then never paid him. (Curtis deferred to Seiden for comment.)

Khan could also be staring down more serious trouble. New York prosecutors are investigating his actions, according to two sources with knowledge of the case. The district attorney’s office is looking into whether Khan altered an email from Philippe Sereys de Rothschild, co-owner of Bordeaux’s Château Mouton-Rothschild, in order to convince an investor that he had partnered with the first-growth on a series of dinners. If true, that would suggest Khan knew he was committing fraud.

Khan told Wine Spectator, “I deny any wrongdoing and refuse to comment due to pending litigation.”

Power players and power wines

According to a bio on the Sensei International website, Khan is an international business consultant and the author of several books on using language to persuade people. Khan is “one of the pioneers of Neuro-linguistic programming,” the site claims. It also says he was born in Egypt, the son of Pakistani diplomats, and attended Oxford University.

Khan began holding his wine dinners in New York in late 2013. According to media reports at the time, his goal was to combine business forums with wine passion, inviting top executives to hear speakers, enjoy good food and rare wines. A typical dinner featured David Bouley and Anita Lo preparing six courses for guests at Bouley Test Kitchen, while Château Palmer’s Thomas Duroux personally served several vintages of the Bordeaux and the CEO of CHC Helicopter gave a talk. Members at that time paid $5,000 a year, as well several hundred dollars for each dinner.

According to the lawsuit, Khan asked some regular attendees to partner with him on upcoming dinners. For example, Schaefer of Morgan Stanley was introduced to Khan in 2018 by a sommelier, according to the lawsuit. He asked if she was interested in investing $36,050 in an event at Craft in New York for an estimated profit of $13,500 to be split equally. In March 2019, Khan hosted the event but never sent Schaefer any money, the suit alleges.

One plaintiff, Penavic, invested millions of dollars in IB&WS over the course of several years for various dinners in New York, London, Hong Kong and other cities, the suit alleges. Khan also approached him about investing in collaborations with Mouton-Rothschild. After months of asking for updates and being told that his share of profits was held up by French agencies or the IRS, Penavic began approaching other clients about suing. (Sereys de Rothschild did not respond to a request for comment.)

More than one allegation

Penavic and his fellow plaintiffs’ suit is not the only legal jeopardy Khan faces, however. In January, Napa Valley winery Sinegal Estate owner (and former Costco CEO) David Sinegal sued Khan over $75,000 he invested in a dinner offering 23 vintages of Pétrus. According to the complaint, Sinegal suspected something was wrong when Khan wouldn’t allow him to inspect the bottles’ provenance. The dinner was eventually cancelled. The suit was settled in June for $125,000.

In December, Jean-Claude Bernard, the owner of one of Burgundy’s best-known hotels, Hotel Le Cep in Beaune, filed suit against Khan. According to his complaint, he met Khan at a Paris dinner featuring a vertical of DRC that the IB&WS organized. Khan and Bernard hit it off and decided to organize several dinners in Beaune, Paris and London. Some happened, some did not. Bernard invested a total of $472,500 and has not received a dime back, the lawsuit claims.

And in April, the owner of Cellaraiders, a rare wine store in Brewster, N.Y., filed a suit. According to Ben Wallace’s complaint, he and Khan partnered on a series of wine dinners in 2018, with Cellaraiders investing more than $250,000 as well as supplying more than $36,000 worth of rare wines. Khan sent Wallace several checks, all of which bounced.

As of now, the three active cases are moving through New York state court. Seiden says in the days since he filed his clients’ complaint, several other Khan clients have contacted him with their own allegations.

For now, the IB&WS website is down, offering only an error message. But under contact info, the site simply states, “We do not offer refunds.”

—With reporting by Suzanne Mustacich, Bruce Sanderson and Augustus Weed. This story is developing. Check back for updates. [Click button below]

DA’s office probing wine consultant accused of scamming Wall Street elite

BY KEVIN DUGAN | New York Post

A wine-loving business consultant accused of bilking Wall Street highfliers out of millions is being probed by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, The Post has learned.

Prosecutors in the DA’s Major Economic Crimes bureau have met with multiple alleged victims of Omar Khan over allegations that he swindled Wall Street bigwigs and other wealthy New Yorkers out of millions for wine events that never happened, sources said.

Specifically, the top prosecutor is looking at claims that Khan once doctored an e-mail from the office of Philippe Rothschild, the owner of the upscale Chateau Mouton winery, to falsely showcase his ties to the esteemed winery — and dupe people into investing with him, according to two people familiar with the DA’s questioning.

Khan is known in New York business circles for hosting rarified dinners where expensive wines — some worth more than $30,000 — are served to about a dozen guests, usually wealthy and important people.

Guests who have attended Khan’s events include Pierre Lurton, the director of Chateau Cheval Blanc, a high-end wine estate owned by luxury brand LVMH; Sir Ivor Martin Crewe, the master of University College at Oxford, and retired real estate developer Daniel Rose, known for building Pentagon City in Arlington, Va., according to sources and social media.

As The Post exclusively reported last week, a group of high-profile Wall Streeters, including Sanford C. Bernstein CEO Robert van Brugge, are suing Khan in Manhattan state court, claiming he conned them into investing into fake wine events.

The group is seeking more than $8 million plus interest — the bulk of which came from ex-Renaissance Technologies researcher Kresimir Penavic, who invested close to $5 million with Khan through 27 events from 2015 to 2018.

Three other suits have accused Khan, head of Park Avenue consulting firm Sensei International, of similar allegations. He has denied the allegations in the suits, and has settled one from 2015.

The probe from Vance’s office, however, shows an escalation in potential woes for Khan.

“It’s not civil, it’s criminal,” one person familiar with the investigation told The Post.

Of interest to the prosecutors on the case, which is being run by Assistant DA Lisa White, is the allegation in the latest lawsuit by the group of Wall Streeters that Khan “manufactured” an e-mail from Rothschild’s office because, if true, it would suggest he knowingly defrauded investors, the people said.

Khan said he wasn’t aware of any investigation and declined to comment further.

But in a 20-minute interview with The Post on Sept. 4, Khan blamed “cash-flow issues” that stemmed from clients who failed to pay him.

“There’s no e-mail from Philippe Rothschild himself that had anything to do with anything here,” Khan said after calling a Post reporter’s cell phone.

Later, Khan suggested he never had any specific dealing with the Rothschild winery — and never claimed otherwise.

“I shared what I thought some of [Rothschild’s] possible interests would be, and that may have been construed or interpreted as whatever. I’m not saying I misunderstood [the Rothschilds] or they even made any explicit suggestions. They did not.”

He went on to insist that there was nothing in writing to show otherwise — before realizing there might, in fact, be written evidence.

“Certainly, there were not, yeah, there was nothing written to that effect that I’m aware of. I could be wrong. I could be wrong,” he said.

After The Post published the story about his alleged wine scheme. Khan sent a text saying the story could hurt his ability to make amends with investors.

“I didn’t mention that unfortunately your running the story as we’ve started settling as best we can, will make it so much harder,” he wrote.

“I can but ask you give that some thought. If we made no progress, it would still be a story later. Right now, everyone stands to lose,” he wrote.

A spokesman for the DA’s office declined to comment.

High-profile Wall Streeters hit by ‘Ponzi-like’ wine scam: lawsuit

BY KEVIN DUGAN | New York Post

A New York business consultant known for throwing lavish wine parties at five-star eateries like Daniel has bilked a cadre of Wall Street bigwigs out of millions, according to a shocking new lawsuit.

Omar Khan, who runs the Sensei International consulting firm on Park Avenue, used his fancy Rolodex to stage wine-fueled shindigs that lured more than a dozen captains of industry into a “Ponzi-like scheme,” according to the lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court on Wednesday.

The suit claims Khan met many of his alleged victims at his own parties, which “centered around vintage wines and expensive cuisine.” Khan then used his well-heeled connections — as well as claimed ties to famous names like Philippe Rothschild of the Mouton winery — to convince his alleged victims to invest in his growing events business, the suit said.

In addition to Robert Van Brugge, CEO and chairman of Sanford C. Bernstein, victims include Kresimir Penavic, a former senior research scientist at Renaissance Capital, the $110 billion hedge fund founded by James Simons; Robert Gelfond, director at the Cato Institute; Peter Slagowitz, CEO of Spurs Capital; and Lorine Schaefer, a vice president at Morgan Stanley, court documents say.

They are suing for $8.3 million, plus interest, although the bulk of the losses allegedly belong to Penavic, who invested close to $5 million with Khan through 27 events from 2015 to 2018.

“He was larger than life,” Penavic said of Khan, who scored glowing write-ups about his “elite supper club” in Forbes and Bloomberg.

“Not only by his volume, by his voice, the way he talked,” Penavic said in an interview with The Post. “He liked to position himself as in the know and bask in the limelight.”

Penavic’s suit is the latest in a string of civil suits making similar claims filed against Khan since 2015.

“There’s no question this guy was a con man. He may have started out legitimately as a business, but eventually he got to a point where I guess he got greedy. From my standpoint, this guy needs to get brought to justice.”

Robert Seiden
Managing Partner of Seiden Law Group and Attorney for Plaintiffs

According to a lawsuit filed in December by Jean-Claude Bernard, the owner of a hotel in Beaune, France, Khan allegedly failed to pay out the profits at an exclusive dinner where sommeliers uncorked 36 different bottles of wine during an evening for a group of guests at the Four Seasons Hotel George V in Paris.

Those included rarities like a Mandive Vigo from 1814 and a $5,000 Domaine de la Romanee Conti Montrachet from 1973.

“Those are exactly the same wines that were supposed to be served at a dinner in Paris that I was supposed to attend — that he canceled!” Penavic fumed.

Khan has denied Bernard’s allegations and is seeking to dismiss the case. Bernard didn’t return a request for comment.

In January, Napa Valley winery owner David Sinegal sued Khan over a $75,000 investment for 23 bottles of Chateau Petrus bottled from 1923 to 2005 — a series of extremely rare and expensive vintages, according to San Francisco federal court papers.

Sinegal realized something was amiss when Khan wouldn’t allow him to inspect the bottles’ authenticity — and the dinner ultimately never happened. The suit was settled in June with Khan paying $125,000 to Sinegal, who declined to comment.

Khan, who lives in a Midtown Manhattan high-rise, denied the allegations to The Post and blamed “cash-flow issues” from clients that hadn’t paid him.

“This is because of a cash issue, which then led to people not being able to have the dinners done and their wines received. That’s terrible. We’ve addressed it, we will address it,” he said.

“To call that a Ponzi scheme, that would suggest that no dinners were done, that’s absurd,” Khan added.

Khan’s wife, Leslie Khan, who is named as a defendant in the most recent suit, didn’t return a request for comment.

Not much is known about Khan before he started his vintner venture, the International Business and Wine Society, in 2013. He claims to have been born in Egypt — the son of a diplomat to Pakistan — and to have attended Oxford University and Stanford Law School before becoming a business consultant.

Khan says he’s “one of the pioneers of neuro-linguistic programming,” which can allegedly train people to influence others using language, according to his Sensei bio. He also has written several books, including the self-published “Synergy: Channeling the Energies of Transformation,” which he weirdly brags was “acknowledged by one eminent reviewer as ‘a blow for civilization.’”

It’s unclear where the investors’ money went. Khan claims it all went to wine and dinners, while the latest lawsuit claims he spent it on himself.

“This guy needs to be stopped, Penavic said. “Right now as we speak, he is probably scheming and organizing a dinner.”

The hedge funder says Khan first dazzled him in February 2015 at a private dinner at Daniel, the Michelin-starred eatery owned by Daniel Boulud that offers a seven-course tasting menu for $250.

One of the main draws of the dinner was Anne-Claude Leflaive, who then presided over one of the most exclusive wine estates in Burgundy — about two months before she died from cancer, Penavic said.

“It was very, very kind of her to come all the way from France,” Penavic said.

The dinners were usually attended by about 10 other wine enthusiasts, and talk usually stuck to the spirits, Penavic said. Among the bottles opened were a 1945 Mouton Rothschild, a vintage that can sell for as much as $33,000 a bottle.

At a May 2017 dinner at The NoMad, a swanky Manhattan restaurant, Khan dazzled Pierre Lurton, the director of Chateau Cheval Blanc, a high-end wine estate owned by luxury brand LVMH, said Penavic, who was in attendance.

The dinner was such a success, Lurton invited Khan and his guests to his Bordeaux chateau soon after for wine and dinner — an invitation they accepted, Penavic added. Lurton didn’t return a request for comment.

“A person so well-connected and capable of doing things like that, you don’t think twice,” Penavic said.

Sir Ivor Martin Crewe, the master of University College at Oxford, lectured at one of Khan’s events in 2018, according to the International Business and Wine Society’s Instagram page. Oxford did not return a request for comment.

Khan partly relied on his ties to retired real estate developer Daniel Rose, known for building Pentagon City in Arlington, Va., to build credibility, Penavic’s lawsuit said.

Rose declined to comment, but the lawsuit says the retired real estate developer “confirmed that he is a close family friend of Khan but denies having ever invested with Khan or having ever made any financial dealings with Khan.”

Khan appears to have fabricated other connections, the lawsuit says, including to Rothschild, whose Bordeaux winery was started in 1853 by Baron Nathaniel de Rothschild. In one alleged scheme, Khan claimed Rothschild’s winery wanted Khan’s help opening a New York wine club. But his only evidence — an email coming from Rothschild’s office — appears to have been “manufactured,” the lawsuit said.

Rothschild did not return a request for comment.

Penavic ultimately paid Khan $4.9 million in principal investments, and is owed another $1.9 million in interest and unpaid profits, according to the suit.

Van Brugge claims that Khan owes him $235,750 of principal and profit he was owed, according to the suit. Miriam Tai, a VP at Franklin Templeton, claims Khan never returned $312,625 in principal and profit.

The other defendants who joined Penavic declined to comment through their lawyer, Rob Seiden.

“There’s no question this guy was a con man,” said Seiden of the Seiden Law Group. “He may have started out legitimately as a business, but eventually he got to a point where I guess he got greedy. From my standpoint, this guy needs to get brought to justice.”

BY THE SEIDEN GROUP

After Decade-Long Legal Fight, Hedge Fund Managers Win $46M

BY JASON GRANT | July 01, 2019

New York Law Journal, VOLUME 262–NO.1

BY JASON GRANT | New York Law Journal

“I will not pay you, I will not pay you a dime, you know, and before this is done and over, your wife will be here in the office, here on her knees, begging for mercy,” a hedge fund founder and defendant yelled at an employee in 2008 according to witness trial testimony.

After more than 10 years of litigation, some 60 depositions, 11 counterclaims, around 900 docket entries and a three-week trial, a jury decided that a Manhattan hedge fund must pay two former portfolio managers $46 million for breaching verbal compensation agreements made in the days when hedge funds new high.

The jury’s awards—$21.4 million to former Touradji Capital Management portfolio manager Gentry Beach and $24.3 million to former Touradji portfolio manager Robert Vollero Jr.—will balloon to a nearly $91 million total payout because of 9% yearly interest to be added to compensation that was earned from 2005 to 2008.

The defendant hedge fund, however, driven by its aggressive and reportedly brash founder, Paul Touradji, recently filed a notice of appeal in the case to the Appellate Division, First Department. The verdict came down in May. And so the epic litigation lives on.