White Collar Defense

When a company that is under investigation for money laundering decides to sell its assets, what was once a straightforward sales process becomes a complex negotiation. That is what happened with our client, a provider of diagnostic testing equipment.

Ifrah Law and Michelle Cohen represented the company in its sale of radiology and cardiology diagnostic services equipment, which involved numerous challenges. Understandably, the buyer was concerned about the ongoing criminal investigation, and Michelle worked closely with them to address their concerns about representations and warranties and possible post-sale seizure from the government. Additionally, since there were bank liens on some of the assets, Michelle worked with the bank’s outside counsel to arrange a prompt payoff, obtain a satisfactory pay-off letter and secure a release of the liens in order to close the deal. Michelle also worked with the buyer to create a creditor payment plan that would payoff unsecured creditors and obtain releases from them in order to address the buyer’s concerns about unsecured creditors seeking relief from the buyer. Finally, she created an employee fund (funded by the buyer) to pay for uncompensated leave time.

These complicated issues were resolved in less than two weeks, as a result of Michelle’s skilled negotiations with all parties. The buyer was represented by Delaware’s largest law firm.

Ifrah Law represented a former Homestore.com executive, Stuart Wolff, who was indicted for securities fraud. During a six-year battle with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, the trial and appellate teams worked together to secure a reversal of the client’s conviction and a new trial.

In the months leading up to the second trial, the defense team, which included Jeff Ifrah of Ifrah Law, leveraged irregularities with discovery to obtain dismissal of all charges related to PricewaterhouseCoopers, Homestore’s former accounting firm. As a result, the sentence on remand was reduced by 70 percent relative to the sentence imposed after the first trial.

Jeff Ifrah was the only attorney Mr. Wolff retained from the beginning of the case to its conclusion. Mr. Ifrah began managing the legal team after the first trial, continued through the appellate process, and also in the team’s preparation for trial on remand.

Jeff Ifrah was responsible for formulating and executing the strategy that resulted in the 70 percent reduction of Mr. Wolff’s sentence.

(U.S. v. Wolff, Case No. 2:05-cr-00398 (U.S. District Court, Central District of California))

Ifrah Law’s client, a Russian corporation, was charged in the United States District Court
for the District of Columbia with violating the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
(CFTC) Act.

The company is comprised of a group of financial and investment companies that provide
online trading services. The government alleged that the defendants operated a foreign
currency exchange business over the Internet, which served U.S. customers but did not
register with the CFTC, as is required by law. The government was seeking $280,000 in
potential fines and the worldwide shutdown of the lucrative website.

After the government obtained a default judgment against the defendant, they turned to
Ifrah Law. With our representation and expertise in financial matters, the case was settled
for a small fine and the website remains operable outside of the United States.

(CFTC v. InstaForex, Case No. 1:11-cv-00188 (U.S. District Court, District of Columbia))