CORAL GABLES, Fla. — A team of highly experienced Coral Gables-based attorneys played an important role in securing a $521 million verdict for Portugal’s Espirito Santo Bank against accounting firm BDO Seidman for negligent financial audits performed over several years at E.S. Bankest, a Miami factoring company. Those audits were blamed for facilitating one of...Read More
BY ELINOR J. BRECHER [email protected] A Circuit Court jury in Miami decided on Monday that the accounting firm BDO Seidman should pay the late philanthropist/aviation pioneer George Batchelor’s estate and foundation $91 million for “fraudulently” concealing false information about a company in which Batchelor had invested. The award consists of $55 million in punitive and...Read More
BY DAVID LYONS Shaken by the case of a young mother who suffered severe brain damage after driving off a dark road and into a canal, a Miami-Dade jury has decided she and her son deserve nearly $18 million in what lawyers say is the largest award in memory for a negligence lawsuit. The tragedy...Read More
BY JOAN FLEISCHMAN Raquel Woolin has been trying to unload her Miami Beach estate for years, especially after her mil- lionaire husband’s 2002 suicide. She asked $14.9 million. Finally, Woolin found a buyer: California developer Richard Meruelo, who signed a contract to buy the 2.35-acre property for $10.95 million. Meruelo flew to Miami for the...Read More
MIAMI (April 7, 2014) – Prominent South Florida attorneys Gonzalo R. Dorta and Matias R. Dorta announced today the formation of Dorta Law, a boutique Coral Gables-based trial law firm. The minority-owned firm will provide trial practice services with an additional focus on commercial litigation and arbitration. Led by the Dorta brothers, who collectively bring...Read More
MIAMI – A powerful financier from the Dominican Republic has been found liable in an illegal money transfer case, handing a victory to authorities trying to recoup millions of dollars lost in the 2003 collapse of that country’s third-largest bank. The jury found Luis Alvarez Renta liable Monday on three counts of racketeering and one...Read More
BOCA RATON, Fla. — It seemed too good to be true. When American multimillionaire Wilson C. Lucom died in 2006, he left the bulk of his fortune to a new foundation dedicated to feeding Panama’s poor children — not to his politically-connected Panamanian widow, nor to her children. It would be one of the largest...Read More
BY LAURA ISENSEE [email protected] The town of Miami Lakes does not have to disclose the e-mail distribution list used by Mayor Michael Pizzi, according to a Miami-Dade circuit judge who ruled last week that the addresses are not public record. Circuit Judge Jerald Bagley issued a ruling from the bench Friday, addressing two dueling lawsuits...Read More
ANALYSIS – Victory against Latin bank fraud marks milestone A Dominican government legal victory in Miami sparks questions about banking justice in Latin America BY JANE BUSSEY – [email protected] The Dominican government’s victory in a Miami courtroom earlier this week over one of the Caribbean nation’s most powerful financiers was a milestone in bringing the...Read More
BY MATTHEW HAGGMAN Zoilo C. Nieto plunked down a $209,000 deposit in May for a $1.04 million condo unit at Trump Pal- ace with visions of a sleek new residence to go with his plans to expand his language school busi- ness into South Florida. But weeks later, after assurances the unit was his, the...Read More
