Fraudsters Beware: Why a Nassau Court Refused to Dismiss Veil Piercing Claims

If you’re going to move money around from one project to another when your company is insolvent, i.e., “when the present fair salable value of his assets is less than the amount of that will be required to pay his probable liability on his existing debtors as they become absolute and matured,” you do so [...]

NY Federal Court Allows Claims Seeking to Pierce Corporate Veil

As noted in our earlier article, “Piercing the Corporate Veil – Critical Facts that You Will Need to Prove Your Case Under New York Law,” it is not an easy task to amass sufficient facts to survive an initial motion to dismiss a claim that seeks to pierce a corporation’s veil – let alone prove [...]

NY Federal Court Denies Request for Additional Chance to Pierce Corporate Veil of Defendants

You may be wondering what valuable, relevant  lessons can possibly be gleaned by a small business with a comparatively simple breach of contract matter from the Bhopal disaster (remember that environmental disaster from years ago?). The answer is, quite a bit. For one thing, in Sahu v. Union Carbide, a New York federal judge recently [...]

Finding Proof Insufficient to Pierce the Corporate Veil, Suffolk Court Dismisses Breach of Contract Claim

If the unsubstantiated claims of this plaintiff are actually true, then I feel bad for the plaintiff. But, as noted by the Court, therein lies the problem: the allegations are unsubstantiated. In Lecce Penn Co. SPA v. Adrenaline Marketing & Promotions, Inc., the plaintiff sued in breach of contract and fraud to recover over $300,000 [...]

In NY Business & Consumer Fraud Case, Court Refuses to Pierce the Corporate Veil

In a strongly worded — and educational — opinion, a New York Federal Judge went out of his way to delineate what allegations suffice, and in White v. National Home Protection, Inc., what did not suffice, to survive dismissal on a claim seeking to pierce the corporate veil. In granting the defendants’ motions to dismiss [...]

In Breach of Contract Case, NY Court Upholds Piercing the Corporate Veil Claim

In Geneva Capital Corp. v. American Lending Services, LLC, a decision that was reported in last week’s New York Law Journal, a New York County trial judge acted in Solomonic fashion: she dismissed some of the claims, while letting stand other claims, including the plaintiff’s claim seeking to hold the individual defendant personally liable for [...]

Commission Salesman Not Entitled to Recover Statutory Damages, Attorney’s Fees on Breach of Contract Claim, NY Court Holds

In today’s edition of the New York Law Journal, there was an interesting decision from a New York County trial court in a breach of contract case, Garber v. Inter Capital Resources LLC. In this case, the plaintiff was a commission salesman who sought to recover the commissions that he purportedly earned – but was [...]

Constructive Fraud: A Lesser-Known, But Powerful Tool in New York To Recover Money That You’re Owed

Many small businesses’ recurring nightmare, particularly in this economy, looks something like this: Debtor D (we’ll call him “D,” for short) owes you tens of thousands of dollars for product that you delivered months ago. When you inquire as to what the delay is in receiving payment, you get a run-around, and ultimately find out [...]

When A Company Can Enforce A Contract’s Terms – Even If They Weren’t A Party To The Original Contract – Under New York Law

Strange as it may sound, there are times that you can reap the benefit of a contract’s provisions even if you had nothing to do with the contract at the time it was signed. And this is exactly what happened in Corbett v. Firstline Security, Inc., et al. In this case, the plaintiff sued to [...]

New York Federal Judge Allows Piercing the Corporate Veil Claims To Proceed – For Now

In light of my previous columns (see, e.g., Piercing the Corporate Veil – Critical Facts That You Will Need to Prove Your Case and, from earlier today, No Personal Liability For Corporate Fraud, Court Holds) setting forth some of the difficulties in piercing the corporate veil, here’s a “hot-off-the-presses” decision from a Federal judge in [...]