Robins Kaplan LLP recently secured a key victory for Continuum Energy Technologies LLC (“CET”) and its CEO, John Preston, in an ongoing dispute with Iron Oak, Inc. and its principal, Rajiv Gosain. After extensive oral argument by Robins Kaplan Partner Gabriel Berg, Judge Joel M. Cohen of the New York State Supreme Court, Commercial Division voided and vacated two confessions of judgment issued in favor of Iron Oak in 2017 and 2018, in the amounts of $4 million and $15.1 million, respectively.
Judge Cohen ruled that the two confessions of judgment were facially invalid because they were not adequately supported by the accompanying affidavits. Berg argued that confessions of judgment on their faces failed to meet the required “justly due” New York legal standard and lacked a reasonable basis from which to calculate the sum allegedly due.
The pleadings allege that Gosain, a non-lawyer who provided litigation management and advisory services, informed CET that it could recover more than $93 million in litigation claims against various third parties. Plaintiff further alleges that Gosain presented to Preston a legal opinion from a now-defunct law firm to support Gosain’s recommendations.
Following this victory, Robins Kaplan will pursue litigation on behalf of CET to vacate Gosain’s domestication of the New York confessed judgments in Massachusetts. In addition, Texas co-counsel, Geoffrey Berg, of Berg Plummer Johnson & Raval, LLP in Houston, who previously obtained an order compelling the return of $5 million earmarked for Iron Oak, ultimately will seek to dissolve a Texas receivership, also premised on the vacated New York confessed judgments.
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