Lawsuit towards owner of Key Automotive moves ahead

A Massachusetts decide is enabling most of a lawsuit involving a string of motor vehicle dealerships in southern Maine to go forward.

The Exceptional Court docket decide dismissed a pair of counts in the lawsuit submitted by David Rosenberg, who in 2017 offered most of his stake in Key Motors to New York-based mostly investment decision business GPB Capital Holdings for $235 million. Rosenberg was named main executive of the expanded organization, renamed Prime Automotive Group, which is based in Massachusetts and owns 40 dealerships in the Northeast. But Rosenberg shortly complained about fiscal misdeeds he mentioned he uncovered and exercised an option that allowed him to promote the relaxation of his inventory to the corporation.

The enterprise fired Rosenberg, and when it unsuccessful to make a payment on Rosenberg’s shares, he filed go well with in Massachusetts.

The defendants wanted a choose to dismiss the lawsuit, but Justice William Sullivan set aside only a couple counts in the lawsuit and is letting most of it to transfer ahead.

For instance, the 8 defendants requested Sullivan to dismiss the accommodate in opposition to them as individuals, arguing that they did not carry out business enterprise in the commonwealth, in spite of the company’s currently being centered in Massachusetts. But the choose dismissed only a section of the accommodate towards just one of the defendants.

Sullivan also dismissed some independent charges in opposition to personal defendants on a further count and threw out a fraud allegation, but allowed most of the match in opposition to the company executives or board customers and the firm alone to transfer forward.

A assertion issued by a spokeswoman for GPB Capital observed that two previous attempts by Rosenberg to get injunctions failed, and that the firm mentioned it believed it would ultimately prevail on the remaining counts.

Primary Automotive or entities linked with its guardian enterprise, GPB Cash, also experience lawsuits filed by a Texas legislation company, which alleges the business defrauded investors of $1.8 billion, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which said 180 traders in the state have lost $14 million.

These satisfies echo quite a few of Rosenberg’s allegations. He stated the mum or dad agency promised to shell out buyers from income, but alternatively made use of money from new buyers to pay those who had set in funds ahead of. In that way, he explained, it operated like an illegal Ponzi scheme.

He also said GPB Money executives made phony contracts and adopted promotions that benefited the heads of the financial commitment fund relatively than investors. And, Rosenberg stated, in 2018 an accounting firm hired to audit the expense firm’s publications resigned and claimed it was withdrawing its views that experienced given the organization a clean bill of economical health for 2015 and 2016.

A string of Primary dealerships in Saco and Scarborough was released in 2004 by Ira Rosenberg, who experienced made and then sold the Ira Motor Team string of dealerships in Massachusetts. Ira and David Rosenberg started functioning the Maine dealerships collectively a handful of a long time later on. Ira Rosenberg retired in 2017 and died in 2019.

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