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Law Firms

Dentons, Boies Schiller call lawsuit claims against them ‘literally incoherent’ and ‘utterly implausible’

By Debra Cassens Weiss

November 5, 2024, 3:27 pm CST

Dentons and Boies Schiller Flexner are asking a New York City federal judge to toss a racketeering lawsuit against them in legal briefs that deride the allegations by its former clients as “literally incoherent” and “utterly implausible.”

Law360 and Reuters have coverage of the law firms’ briefs seeking dismissal (here and here), which were filed Oct. 31.

Dentons said former clients Frank Corsini and his companies had stiffed Dentons on $1.9 million in legal fees, and contrary to the suit allegations, it was the “plaintiffs themselves who have long been unjustly enriched.”

Boies Schiller said it also received no fees from the plaintiffs because its representation was on a contingency basis in an ultimately unsuccessful arbitration before a panel of the International Chamber of Commerce. The plaintiffs “received the benefit of first-class counsel,” Boies Schiller argued, “without having to pay a dime.”

The $300 million suit by Corsini and two of his companies had alleged that Dentons and Boies Schiller ignored “red flags” suggesting that his contract to develop a power plant in Senegal, a country in West Africa, was invalid. The firms then schemed to generate legal fees, he said in the April suit.

Dentons had represented Corsini in negotiations with Senegal’s energy supplier Senelec. The contract signed by a Senelec representative was invalid because it was not approved by Senelec’s board, Corsini said. He also claimed that Boies Schiller failed to verify whether the contract was valid before the arbitration.

Corsini alleged that the firms and several attorneys violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act by seeking to present false testimony about the invalid contract to the arbitration tribunal. He also alleged fraud and unjust enrichment.

Dentons responded that the plaintiffs’ claims had “fatal flaws,” and their narrative was “utterly implausible.” Even though a Dentons partner provided testimony that supported the position of Corsini’s companies in the arbitration, the plaintiffs manufactured “a laundry list of absurd allegations, all premised on conclusory buzzwords without foundation,” Dentons said.

Boies Schiller said the plaintiffs’ claims “ignore controlling law and are devoid of any particularized allegations of how they were supposedly defrauded. More fundamentally, plaintiffs’ claims are literally incoherent: They seek (astronomical) damages based on the dismissal of a prior arbitration claim in which BSF represented them on contingency and which plaintiffs now allege never had merit in the first place.”

Dentons said it would be seeking sanctions in a future motion.

Paul Amandio Batista, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, commented on the dismissal arguments in an email to Law360.

“I look forward to the day when jurors hear evidence at trial about the misconduct of these two major firms,” he said. “Jurors have a refreshing ability to understand reality, and the reality here is that two immense law firms abused Mr. Corsini.”

The case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, is Corsini v. Dentons.