Muskin Law Offices

Major issues in this area arise from fraudulent conveyances. Under the Uniform Fraudulent Conveyance Act, a version of which is enacted in most states, a debtor whose assets are insufficient to satisfy claims as they fall due is prohibited from transferring assets without fair consideration. If you are owed money, and you believe someone who owes you money has hidden assets in order to avoid paying you, we may be able to help.

Example: In one client's case, the debtor had personally guaranteed his company's note. The company went bankrupt. We obtained a judgment enforcing the guarantee against the debtor. Then we discovered that the debtor, trying to protect his assets, purchased an insurance annuity jointly with his spouse. Under exemptions enacted in most states, such insurance products cannot be attached to satisfy a judgment. Working with local counsel in Pennsylvania, and opposing one of the major law firms in the region, we obtained a judgment, affirmed all the way to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that voided the annuity purchase as a fraudulent conveyance. This made it unnecessary to litigate the more difficult issue of the insurance exemption. The judgment was collected in full.

Litigation

Example: Representing concerned beneficiaries of a large family trust, we petitioned the court to compel the trustees to account, and remove and surcharge the trustees. The main trustee was a major bank; the other a family member. No account had been rendered for over twenty-five years. We highlighted a number of improper payments by institutional trustee and identified grounds to disqualify the family trustee. The matter was settled by a court-approved agreement pursuant to which the trustees resigned, funds were restored, the account was settled and new trustees were appointed.

Administration

We draw up wills and trusts, and handle estate administration, from the petition for probate through distribution, working closely with the estate representatives and their accountants. The firm also handles contested matters in Surrogate’s Court. If you need to review your estate plans, or are facing a dispute over an estate of which you are a beneficiary, we may be able to help.

Litigation

The firm has litigated a variety of real estate issues, including partnership disputes, municipal land use regulations and commercial landlord-tenant issues and a variety of issues related to commercial advertising displays. We also handle contracts and closings for the purchases and sales of real estate and cooperative apartments.

Example: Our client transferred a controlling interest in an apartment building to his partners and advanced large sums of money to finance renovations. The partners diverted most of the money to their personal use and other projects. After an extended jury trial, we obtained a settlement terminating the partnership and restoring full ownership of the building to our client.

Transactions and Counseling

We handle purchases and sales of co-operative and condominium apartments and other interests in real property, and represent condominium association boards.

Reclames

We have had considerable success in recovering losses caused by broker misconduct. These cases are usually resolved through arbitration.

During unstable market conditions, investment losses occur frequently. However, it is important to remember that the simple fact that money is lost due to a market decline does not mean that the investor has a good claim for damages. Nevertheless – if you feel that you suffered market losses because a broker placed your funds in unsuitable investments, or failed to follow your instructions, or misled you in any way, you may have a valid claim, and can send us an e-mail to initiate an evaluation.

Défense

Example: In a complex arbitration, the client was the president of a small venture capital company. He was sued by a group of investors, who also sued his company, the broker who had sold the company’s securities to the investors, the broker’s former institutional employer, and the issuer of other investment securities in which the claimants had invested. The claims included allegations of securities fraud, common law fraud, unsuitable investments, conversion, racketeering, unjust enrichment, conspiracy, failure to supervise, unauthorized trading, respondeat superior, and consumer fraud, among others. After a lengthy trial involving weeks of testimony and thousands of pages of exhibits, liability was imposed against all respondents except our client, who alone was completely exonerated.

We handle cases involving a variety of employment issues, including non-compete agreements, confidentiality agreements, severance issues, trade secrets, Labor Law claims for wages and commissions, wrongful discharge and other matters. Because of the tensions inherent in some employer-employee relationships these cases can be difficult to resolve. We have obtained reasonable settlements, through litigation where necessary.

We prosecute and defend trademark registration applications and litigate as necessary.

The world's major oil companies frequently acquire drilling rights from small companies who lack the financial ability to exploit concessions that they own. The terms of acquisition typically include the grant of an overriding royalty on oil produced from the concession area. In some countries the validity of such royalty interests has been affected by political changes.

Examples: In a pair of cases, we represented royalty owners whose payments stopped even though production continued. The concessionaires mounted multiple defenses. First they claimed that a nationalization payout of hundreds of millions of dollars was for physical assets only, thus extinguishing the royalty. We successfully opposed dismissal on that ground. Then, working with Delaware counsel, we defeated the concessionaires' attempt to transfer the cases to Venezuela. The concessionaires answered by starting a new suit against our client in Venezuela. We obtained a stay of the Venezuela case, and both of the US cases were later settled. One of the decisions is reported at Reavis v. Gulf Oil Corp., 85 F.R.D. 666 (D.Del. 1980).

In another case concerning royalties from concessions elsewhere in South America, the court reached the opposite result due to certain administrative decrees of the military dictatorship then in power. The court did rule, however, that certain pre-nationalization royalty payments had been miscalculated in breach of contractual requirements, and it granted our client judgment against the producers for the underpayments. The ruling on appeal is reported at Phoenix Canada Oil Co. v. Texaco, Inc., 842 F.2d 1466 (3d Cir. 1988).