Morrow Ni LLP is pleased to announce the dismissal of all claims against its client, the Chairman of a Nasdaq-listed public company, in the New York State Supreme Court’s Commercial Division, Manhattan.
The lawsuit arose from a de-SPAC transaction from 2022. The Plaintiff, a Cayman Islands investor, sued the Chairman of the board of the listed company for the company’s refusal to register its stock.
In a demonstration of our relentlessness in litigating complex cross-border disputes, Morrow Ni LLP litigated issues concerning service on the Chairman of the board for three years before the Court ordered alternative service on him. The team then immediately moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim and for lack of personal jurisdiction.
After two hours of oral argument by Morrow Ni Partner Angus Ni, Esq., on October 16, the Court dismissed all counts from the bench. On the record, the Court took pains to distinguish the Plaintiff’s claims from those addressed in its earlier decisions, explaining that, although the company went public on Nasdaq through a de-SPAC transaction, that did not give the Court personal jurisdiction over the company’s directors who have never been to New York.
Although the Court first dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction, the Court also explained to the Plaintiff that none of its causes of action stated a claim for several reasons. While it dismissed without prejudice, the Court suggested that the Plaintiff would be better served by appealing than amending its complaint along the same lines.
The Morrow Ni team included attorneys Angus Ni and Lawrence Yuan, and law clerk Lydia Chan.