Risk Update

News and View — Risk in Review Webinar, Appealed Disqualification Unbeaten

Posted Dan Bressler

“WEBINAR: 2024 Legal Ethics Year in Review” —

  • Thursday, December 12, 2024 @ 1 PM ET
  • “Join Holland & Knight and our colleagues with Adams and Reese for a free one-hour review of the most important developments of the last year (or so) in legal ethics and lawyering.”
  • “They will distill practical guidance from ethics opinions and case law from all over and review what lawyers should know to protect their clients and themselves and practice more effectively.”
  • Topics will include:
    • New Law developments and lawyer regulatory reform
    • Ethical (and unethical) witness preparation
    • The latest cases on advance waivers of conflicts of interest
    • The first lawyers disciplined for falling for wire transfer frauds
    • Ethical (or unethical) deception in investigations
    • Using artificial intelligence (AI) ethically and responsibly
    • Continuing lawyer cybersecurity dangers
  • Lucian and Trish promise more ethics fun in an hour than lawyers should be allowed to have.

“Nelson Mullins Can’t Beat DQ In Foreign Exchange Fraud Suit” —

  • “A Florida state appeals court panel unanimously sided with a trial court Friday in deciding that Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP can’t represent the defendant in a lawsuit accusing him of duping the plaintiff into doing business with online foreign exchange platform FxWinning Ltd. because the firm previously represented the plaintiff in a ‘substantially related’ suit against the company.”
  • “Jay Katari was represented by Nelson Mullins when he and others sued now-defunct Hong Kong-based FxWinning in Miami-Dade County in 2023 for allegedly defrauding them out of more than $80 million, according to case filings. In a separate lawsuit he later filed in Palm Beach County, Katari sued Arthur Percy, whom he accused of fraudulently inducing him to do business with FxWinning.”
  • “Percy hired Nelson Mullins to defend him in the Palm Beach case, prompting Katari to seek the law firm’s disqualification based on its prior representation of him in the Miami-Dade case.”
  • “‘The present action and the prior action are undeniably substantially related, as the fraudulent scheme that lies at the heart of the prior action is also central to the present action: Katari has alleged that Percy fraudulently induced Katari into investing significant amounts of money with FxWinning,’ Katari argued in a June filing with the Florida appeals court. ‘Simply put, the present action alleges that Percy induced Katari to enter into the contract with FxWinning which gave rise to the prior action. Disqualification was the proper remedy.'”
  • “Nelson Mullins had argued that the case in Miami-Dade County was based on FxWinning’s terms and conditions and that it was unrelated to an agreement between Katari and Percy. The law firm further argued that Katari had participated in discovery in the Palm Beach case and thus had waived any objection to Nelson Mullins’ representation of Percy.”