NBA players’ agent sues law firm Gordon Rees for $92 mln in damages

NBA players’ agent sues law firm Gordon Rees for $92 mln in damages

  • Criticism in N.Y. court docket alleges agency implicated in client’s alleged fraud plan
  • Plaintiff Aaron Goodwin a veteran NBA participant representative

(Reuters) – A longtime agent for specialist basketball players and his business associate have sued Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani for more than $92 million in damages, alleging the law business and two of its previous associates conspired in a fraud scheme about the sale of their enterprises.

Players’ agent Aaron Goodwin alongside with his organization lover — twin brother Eric, who is a sports activities promoting specialist — sued Gordon Rees on Jan. 11 in New York point out courtroom. In the complaint, they claimed the San Francisco-based mostly organization assisted to dedicate “a brazen bait-and-switch fraud to mislead the Goodwins into providing their thriving sports activities administration business enterprise.”

The situation pits a veteran agent for top National Basketball Association stars towards just one of the country’s most significant regulation companies, with much more than 1,000 lawyers.

Associates from Gordon Rees on Friday did not immediately reply to messages in search of remark.

Aaron Goodwin’s client work has provided some of the top players in the NBA, including LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Damian Lillard, the lawsuit reported.

“Our consumers suffered considerable reputational damage and a important decline of company,” attorney Rodney Villazor of Smith Villazor, counsel to the Goodwins, claimed in a assertion on Friday, introducing that he plans to go after the scenario to “vindicate the Goodwins’ rights and restore their reputations.”

Joe Kingma of Stites Harbison, a attorney representing Gordon Rees and the other defendants, C. Anthony Mulrain and Alonzo Llorens, who are former companions at the business, did not quickly reply to a ask for for remark.

Mulrain, now at Holland & Knight, and Llorens, who is at Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein, also did not promptly react to very similar messages. Associates from the two firms did not immediately answer to messages trying to get comment.

The Goodwins’ 61-site lawsuit details a sequence of bids for their enterprises, like the ultimate one, when Gordon Rees customer Ten years S.A.C. LLC shut a deal in 2016 to order the Goodwins’ enterprises for $35 million.

The go well with stated the Goodwins had been duped into believing the transaction’s terms, including its employment agreements, remained the exact same as previously types. They mentioned they were not invited to the closing.

The suit accused Gordon Rees of “misrepresentations and concealments,” asserting the Goodwins’ signatures were fraudulently hooked up to deal documents that neither brother claimed they saw or agreed to.

10 years, which would afterwards file for personal bankruptcy, has failed to fork out extra than $25 million owed to the Goodwin brothers, according to the lawsuit. The Goodwins’ lawsuit, which seeks misplaced income from participant wage and endorsement contracts, alleged Decade’s fraud scheme “unraveled” amid mortgage defaults and individual bankruptcy proceedings.

The case is Aaron Goodwin et al v. Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani et al, Supreme Court of the Point out of New York, No. 650167/2023.

For plaintiffs: Rodney Villazor of Smith Villazor

For defendant: Joe Kingma of Stites Harbison

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