Litigation/Disputes

Whether the stakes involve bet-the-company exposure or equity forfeiture, we are known to deliver asymmetric wins—like boosting severance offers by 228%, reducing demands by 90%, or converting inbound demands into inbound wires.

Our pre-litigation settlements read like jury verdicts.

  • Three days before the closing of a $10M merger, we blocked a CEO’s attempt to use a “for-cause” termination to clawback a founding engineer’s vested equity ($233K) and inverted the clawback into a $1.14M settlement from the company.       

  • Against a $7B investment firm, we negotiated a $43,000 severance offer—for a “performance” termination—into a $141,000 exit package with 100% carry.           

  • Against the famed New York nightclub the Brooklyn Mirage, we turned a no-severance termination into a $45,000 settlement in 12 days pre-litigation.

Defense that deters.

In our view, defense that does not deter is merely kicking the can down the road. Defensive maneuvers should not only resolve the current matter but warn against others, providing clients with lasting peace of mind.

  • In a 10-count California FEHA lawsuit seeking $100,000, we reduced the client’s exposure to $30,000 while the co-defendant funded the balance.*

  • Secured voluntary dismissal of CIPA claim with six-figure exposure for ecommerce platform with over 100,000 subscribers ($5,000 statutory violations), resolved without settlement or appearance.

  • Turned a $5,000 demand from disputed API-based postage adjustments into an $18,000 settlement with mutual releases — a $23,000 swing in the client's favor.

  • Defended Easyship Inc. as assignee-for-the-benefit-of-creditors in proceeding involving disputed commercial liabilities — reduced $49,000 demand to $5,000 payment and secured voluntary dismissal.

Attorney Advertising. Results not typical. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Individual results may vary.

  • Counsel for founders, partners, and C-suite executives facing transition conflicts, clawbacks, and severance disputes.

    We expose overreach by unearthing unpriced exposure forcing realignment of positions favorable to clients.

    • The $1.14M Pre-Merger Shift: Defended a tech founder holding a 10% stake in an AI startup against a manufactured $233,000 equity clawback timed aggressively to the eve of a $10M acquisition by a publicly traded company. Challenged altered vesting agreements and backdated documents to convert a $224,000 take-it-or-leave-it offer into a $1.14M cash settlement in just 7 days without delaying the merger.

    • 228% Executive Severance Boost: Represented a private equity executive terminated without cause. Navigated complex, overlapping jurisdictions of U.S. and Italian labor laws to push an initial $43,000 offer into a $141,000 final package plus 100% carry.

    • Rapid No-Severance Turnaround: Intervened for a former Director of Premium Sales at Brooklyn Mirage terminated with an initial starting severance position of zero. Resolved disputed compensation claims to secure a $45,000 settlement within 12 days entirely pre-litigation.

  • Enforcing contractual rights and chasing down contested corporate balances with efficient, metrics-driven representation.

    • High-Risk Creditor Extraction: Recovered 125% of principal from a high-risk Florida defendant facing multiple third-party creditor lawsuits. Sued for fraudulent conveyance and engineered a settlement structured with an ironclad 250% default penalty, elevating our client to highest-priority creditor status within 35 days.

    • NY Supreme Court Billing Dispute: Resolved a six-figure billing and contract invoice dispute involving multi-year nonpayment by securing a $60,000 structured settlement roughly 60 days after filing, avoiding years of costly litigation.

    • Delinquency to Retained Value: Converted a stubborn $8,000 subscription delinquency into $36,000 in preserved contract value by securing an account-stated admission and a structured payment plan.

    • API Postage Adjustment Flip: Turned a $5,000 inbound demand against an e-commerce platform over disputed API postage adjustments into an $18,000 payment to our client—creating a $23,000 positive economic swing with mutual releases.

    • Rapid Commercial Balance Resolutions: * Negotiated a $50,000 settlement on a $55,000 claim within three days of demand, resolving a year-long commercial shipping nonpayment dispute without litigation.

      • Secured a $50,000 lump-sum settlement on $57,000 in disputed carrier adjustment charges and reconciliation balances.

      • Secured a $25,000 settlement on a $27,677 open balance within three days following a prolonged logistics invoicing discrepancy.

      • Recovered a $15,000 wrongfully withheld event deposit in full, pre-litigation, following a disputed rental agreement termination.

  • Drawing on elite training in insolvency, corporate recovery, and bankruptcy-record mining to convert complex financial reconstructions into immediate recovery leverage.

    • Credit Suisse Landmark Enforcement: Represented aggrieved investors alongside the Attorney General of New Jersey in a landmark enforcement action against Credit Suisse Securities (USA), LLC arising from material misrepresentations in its $10 Billion residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) offering.

    • $40M Ponzi Scheme Recovery: Represented investor plaintiffs in a $40 million recovery action against a fund administrator for misrepresentations arising from participation in a large-scale Ponzi scheme.

    • Diamond Finance Co. Bankruptcy Prosecutions: Advised Special Counsel to Chapter 7 bankruptcy trustee for the estates of Diamond Finance Co., Inc. and Robert Diamond in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the EDNY. Prosecuted adversary proceedings to recover funds for investor-victims of a $12 million auto-financing Ponzi scheme, utilizing Bankruptcy Rule 2004 discovery to pierce undisclosed entities, locate concealed assets, and trace fraudulent transfers.

    • Insolvency Demand Liquidation: Defended an e-commerce shipping company as an assignee-for-the-benefit-of-creditors (ABC) in a proceeding involving disputed commercial liabilities, completely neutralizing a $49,000 demand down to a minor $5,000 payment and securing a voluntary dismissal.

California FEHA Defense

  • The Challenge: An operating company faced a sweeping, 10-count California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) lawsuit carrying massive statutory damages and fee-shifting potential.

  • The Strategy: Lead negotiations between co-Defendant and plaintiff’s counsel to exploit divisions in liability between co-defendants, systematically chipping away at the plaintiff's core claims.

  • The Outcome: Negotiated a favorable multi-party settlement that strictly capped our client's exposure at just 30%, with the co-defendant to carry the remaining 70% of the financial burden.

  • The Challenge: On the eve of a critical $10 million merger, a fast-growing tech company threatened a founder with a $233,000 clawback of their vested equity, leveraging the transaction timeline to force an unfair concession.

  • The Strategy: Deployed an aggressive defense strategy that challenged defective drafting issues in the equity agreement, exposed inaccurate cap table, and identified CEO’s documented malfeasance, turning the company's own merger timeline against them.

  • The Outcome: Completely neutralized the clawback threat and inverted the leverage, securing a $1.14 million settlement payment (a +$907,000 net value swing for the client) closed in just 7 days.

$1.14M Equity Recovery

Private Equity TRO & NDA Enforcement

  • The Challenge: A competitor bidder misappropriated proprietary deal materials and breached a strict non-disclosure agreement (NDA) in connection with a failed acquisition process.

  • The Strategy: Filed for emergency injunctive relief to halt the competitor's misuse of the sensitive assets before they could cause market harm.

  • The Outcome: Successfully secured a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) protecting the private equity firm's proprietary materials and halting the competitor in their tracks.

228% Severance Increase

  • The Challenge: A high-level executive was terminated for alleged "performance" reasons and handed an opening severance offer of just $43,000 with bonus withheld, despite 5-years of paid bonuses.

  • The Strategy: Audited the termination framework and identified critical leverage points by navigating the complex, overlapping jurisdictions of U.S. and Italian labor laws. Challenged General Counsel in negotiations for justification and evidentiary support.

  • The Outcome: Drove a 228% increase in the final package, turning a $43,000 offer into final package of $141,000 plus 100% carry.

High-Risk Defendant

  • The Challenge: A client’s funds were trapped with a high-risk defendant masquerading as a licensed CPA facing multiple third-party creditor lawsuits, including from own counsel. Defendant had ignored client for over a year.

  • The Strategy: Sued for fraudulent conveyance among other claims related to use of client proceeds to satisfy outstanding mortgage debt for 3.6M Florida commercial real estate portfolio. Identified indebtedness covenants in agreements and leveraged cross-default provisions. Engineered settlement structure featuring an ironclad 250% default penalty, making our client the highest-priority creditor.

  • The Outcome: Extracted 125% of the original client funds, with the final legal release strictly conditioned upon the total fulfillment of the settlement terms.

ABC Proceeding Demand Reduction

  • The Challenge: A client was targeted with a sudden $49,000 demand within an Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors (ABC) Assignee proceeding.

  • The Strategy: Attacked the liquidator's valuation and accounting methodologies while previewing $75,000 in setoff claims to minimize the client's legal exposure.

  • The Outcome: Negotiated an immediate 90% reduction of the total demand resulting in $5,000 walkaway fee.

Attorney Advertising. Results not typical. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Individual results may vary.

  • We represent companies and executives in high-stakes commercial disputes in state and federal courts, agency tribunals, and private arbitration. Our experience includes successful representations of plaintiffs and defendants across matters involving:

    • Breach of Contract

    • Business Torts

    • Shareholder/Partnership disputes

    • Joint Venture disputes

    • Recruiter Fee disputes

    • Equity Clawbacks

    • Fraud

    • Fiduciary Duty Claims

    • Restrictive Covenants

    • Trade Secret Litigation

    • Mergers & Acquisition related disputes

    • Board Contests

    For more: LitigationWins.com

  • We regularly advise employers on a broad range of matters, involving discrimination, retaliation, harassment claims, wage and hour disputes, and issues relating to restrictive covenants and trade secrets.

    In severance matters, we outperform industry benchmarks. The industry average for C-suite executives across all industries is approximately 31 weeks of severance. We recently secured a mid-level private equity client 41 weeks—adding $93,000 of extra severance compensation on top of the original $43,000 presented. Where a client was terminated without severance or documentary proof for wages owed, we still secured a $45,000 severance payment, in under two weeks.

  • Our team brings deep experience to disputes involving financial transactions and lending relationships, including:

    • Lender liability and borrower disputes

    • Enforcement of loan agreements, guarantees, and security interests

    • Intercreditor and priority disputes

    • Workout-related litigation and post-default enforcement actions

    • Claims arising from structured finance transactions

  • Financial distress demands swift, strategic action. We provide efficient and practical counsel across:

    • Claims arising from restructurings and workouts

    • Fraudulent transfer and preference actions

    • Asset recovery and judgment enforcement

    • Creditor-debtor disputes outside of formal bankruptcy proceedings

    Representative matters include successfully reducing $49,000 demand in ABC Assignee proceeding to a $5K settlement.

  • We serve as deal counsel for businesses navigating complex commercial agreements, from enterprise-level partnerships to multi-party software integrations, including:

    • Intellectual Property Ownership – Securing client ownership of custom-developed technology and clearly defining IP boundaries between proprietary codebases and stand-alone deliverables.

    • Revenue Structuring – Drafting and negotiating revenue share arrangements, including split API-powered transaction models and tiered purchase-based commission structures.

    • Liability & Risk Management – Identifying unapproved liability exposure introduced during contract execution and negotiating favorable indemnity caps and technical support penalty structures to contain financial risk.

    Representative experience includes serving as deal counsel for Easyship Inc. in its Enterprise Agreement with Squarespace, Inc., and in the negotiation of a Master Services Agreement and multiple Statements of Work governing various strategic commercial integrations.

  • Advising companies on third-party subpoenas, civil investigative demands, regulatory inquiries, and government information requests involving customer records, financial transactions, cross-border activity, and enterprise operations.

    Experience includes matters involving and responding to inquiries from agencies and authorities including:

    • U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)

    • United States Attorney’s Offices (USAO)

    • Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)

    • Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

    • U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)

    • Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

    • Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA)

    • New York Attorney General (NYAG)

    • New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS)

    • Federal Trade Commission (FTC)

    • State and federal grand jury subpoenas

    • Civil investigative demands and third-party document subpoenas

    Representation includes document preservation, litigation hold implementation, internal fact development, privilege review, production strategy, regulator communications, and risk containment where the distinction between witness and target can shift quickly.

    In the regulatory arena, Huynh insulates operating companies from the operational and financial exposure associated with federal government oversight. He assists corporate counsel in navigating inquiries and subpoenas from the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), including the State Department, Office of Inspector General. 

    Lawson recently assisted a sovereign-backed fund with navigating a  subpoena issued by the State Department OIG regarding a high-profile U.S.Ambassador who briefly worked at the firm. The matter concluded with no subsequent follow up by the OIG.