Member Info for Njames

Excerpt from the Order Granting Plaintiff YA's Motion for Summary Judgment. There will be no trial on the merits, unless Frontera appeal and the decision is overturned. I expect Frontera will appeal to further kick the can and then play cat and mouse on service and with technicalities as YA attempt to enforce the UK Court judgment, which is now recognized in Texas.

ORDERED that Plaintiff's Motion for Traditional and No-Evidence Summary Judgment is GRANTED. It is further

ORDERED that the money judgment entered against Defendant by The Business and. Property Courts of England and Wales on June 29, 2021 ("June 29, 2021 Judgment") is recognized under the Texas Uniform Foreign-Country Money Judgments Recognition Act. See TEX. CN. PRAC. & REM. CODE§§ 36A.001, et seq. Accordingly, the June 29, 2021 Judgment is

(i) conclusive between the Parties to the same extent as the judgment of a sister state entitled to full faith and credit in Texas would be conclusive; and

(e) enforceable in the same manner and to the same extent as a judgment rendered in Texas.

....

This is a Final Judgment disposing of all claims between the Parties and is appealable.

From an article about recognition of foreign judgments in the U.S. It talks about the various reasons for nonrecognition.

https://www.carltonfields.com/insights/publications/2014/recognition-of-foreign-country-judgments-in-the-un

"2. Fraud. Foreign judgments “obtained by fraud” need not be recognized by U.S. courts. Here courts distinguish between extrinsic and intrinsic fraud. The former consists of some “fraudulent action by the prevailing party that deprived the losing party of adequate opportunity to present its case to the court.” The latter is predicated on allegations of improper conduct within the foreign proceeding, such as perjured testimony or falsified documents.

As a rule, intrinsic fraud will not be sufficient to deny recognition of a foreign judgment. Extrinsic fraud may be sufficient, depending on its seriousness. However, if the foreign court had considered and ruled on the issue of extrinsic or intrinsic fraud, U.S. courts will generally not second-guess the foreign court’s findings."

What FRR seem to be arguing is intrinsic fraud, which will not be sufficient to deny recognition.

They seem to now be using the recognition hearing/process to raise challenges to the underlying claim that should have been made at the UK proceeding. Instead, they took TWO default judgments, not even mounting a defense. Not sure if the Texas judge will be sympathetic to that. The question will be why didn't FRR raise the defense of fraud in the UK, the UK courts are better suited to adjudicate a UK fraud claim than a court in Texas.

I recall they had used Haynes & Boone in the UK to get the original default judgment set aside because FRR were improperly served but that was the extent of their response. No defense on the merits.

I agree with Monti, don't see any way to unhand him of his shares that he purchased by exchange of loan notes or bought in a placement or purchased on the open market. To the extent he was awarded any shares as part of his compensation, perhaps those could be forfeitable for breach of employment contract depending on the terms of the share award granting documents.

He's been off the board for a while, but as to his shares there's no way to relieve him of those outside of some deal struck with him to buy back or cancel in exchange for something (like maybe dropping the claims against him; recall the court that heard the ZM case ordered him to pay damages to the company), or to dilute or wipe him out of existence in a restructuring (which would be bad for average holders).

Thanks Looed very much indeed for keeping track.

Do you know what the quantum of the claimed amount was by Mourant? ZM and SN had joint and several liability originally under their guarantee of payment of Mourant's fees, but did the settlement have SN paying only a portion of that and Mourant is free to go after ZM for the remainder if they want?

Maybe we can sell to BLOE.

A UK court has twice ruled in favor of YA and issued a judgment in the amount of the debt plus interest. I think SN won't pay unless he knows the company is going forward as a viable business. If not, they will Chapter 7 (liquidate) FRC and walk away from the debt. If it is a going concern, they will settle with YA to move forward. So any settlement or payment to YA should be viewed as a good sign. IMO

@Looed -- gotcha, thanks. You wouldn't think it would be this difficult, but perhaps the original counsel botched it.

Without digging through and reading all the pleadings and filings, it just seems odd to me that a Texas court would rule it would have to re-try a suit on the merits rather than giving recognition to a duly obtained foreign judgement. Yes, a hearing or trial to determine whether to give it recognition because maybe there are procedural irregularities in enforcement or otherwise, but if they try it anew, that's totally disrespecting the parties' choice of forum in the underlying agreement and the decision of the foreign court. It would render choice of law / choice of forum clauses in contracts completely irrelevant if that's the result.

Well summarized. YA got a default judgment in the first UK case, which the company got set aside by challenging the service of process. YA brought suit again and took another default judgment, which they are now again attempting to enforce. So the company has never fought the case on the merits, just the technicalities of servie and enforcing a foreign judgment. I'm sure the can is simply being kicked down the road and if/when the PSC and license are reinstated/extended there will need to be a settlement to get this behind them.

The fact that the company has worked hard to salvage a bad situation of its own creation (yes I know ZM was a crook, but there was plenty of inattention and in my view negligence by the board) and appears to be making progress is heartening. Resolving the litigation is merely the first step towards getting a return, there still has to be a deal with the Georgians regarding the license, financing and/or a suitor, etc.

But there is no excuse for there not being an official communication to all holders basically saying "the company is engaged in litigation in numerous venues and will have no comment on these cases pending the resolution of all. The company is continuing its discussions with the Georgian authorities regarding the license and intends to report on the outcome only upon conclusion of all pending matters. The company is in possession of the last register of shareholders as of x date should the need arise to communicate directly with holders. There can be no assurance of any favorable outcome."

The foregoing would provide reassurance to holders without spilling the beans to bad actors or exposing them to liability.

Sorry was referring to RR original post repeating the global warming mantra. No aspersions meant to be cast on any subsequent replies.

Rubbish.

Looks like the global settlement is underway, which is what one would expect with the Cali case being settled.

"Since its inception, the company ... discovered and certified oil and gas reserves in excess of 14 billion barrels of oil and over 30 trillion cubic feet of gas.“

If this were true, funding would never have been an issue, and this board wouldn't exist. We'd all be persons of leisure.

And the Rainbow Warrior is nowhere to be found. No comments on the latest developments? Please, share your wisdom and insights with this board.

Otherwise there's 6-7 posts per day about random developments in Eastern Europe and the FSU, along with childish nicknames.

Most of what Looed reports is gleaned from Harris county and federal court record sites that anyone can sign up for. The fact that he's motivated and continues to spend the time to do so is much appreciated.

Don't recall if he's also the poster that someone from the company occasionally responds to via email, or if that's someone else.

The case that is "personal" to Hope and SN/ZM is the personal guarantee of their own shares they had to give Hope for one of the extensions on interest payments under the loan notes. When the interest payment defaulted, they could have given up their shares to satisfy the claim but chose not to do so. In any event, one would think these cases would also be settled in connection with the fiduciary claim since they are all interrelated.

I don't believe ZM knowingly engineered the current outcome, but in a perverse way, if he hadn't made the secret deal with Green where the PSC and FEGL were mortgaged for the loan (forward oil sale for oil that was never delivered), then Hope would have gotten everything in liquidation. Instead, the liquidators awarded the assets to Green, and then the whole process ground to a halt when it was discovered ZM was involved, pretending to be on both sides, etc. This was the motivation for Hope to do a deal with SN and FRC, settle the case and cooperate, otherwise neither would get anything.