Federal Lawsuit Seeks $400M In COVID-19 PPE Commission Revenues to Be Handed Over

This suit was surfaced by Law.com Radar, ALM’s source for immediate alerting on just-filed cases in federal and state courts.

The complaint was filed on Sept. 19 by a Westpoint, Mississippi, attorney, Mark Cliett, on behalf of J&J Holdings and Assets and Jacob Burbas in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi. Burbas filed for a temporary restraining order against his former business partner, Brandon Wong, who allegedly withheld his share of commissions from the PPE sales in personal accounts. The case is captioned J&J Holdings and Assets, LLC v. Wong.

The accounts were in Wong’s name only with Burbas listed as a beneficiary. The two signed an irrevocable commission agreement in December 2021, establishing Burbas’s share of the PPE sales to be $228 million and is currently held in a SoFi bank account. The agreement also said that Wong was to sign over ownership of the account to Burbas, which he has yet to do, according to the complaint.

Wong allegedly notified Burbas that the commission revenues were previously moved to other banks, including Boston Private which contained around $400 million. Burbas was then informed that his accounts were frozen and that the only way to retrieve his share of the funds was to help Wong refinance his real estate holdings, which he agreed to but never received money for, the complaint said.

“Nothing that Wong has told Burbas has proven to be true and none of his efforts to receive his share of the commissions has been effective,” the lawsuit said.

The interpleader requested by the plaintiffs will discharge SoFi from all liability pertaining to the bank account and order the funds to be placed into the registry of the court. SoFi has reportedly claimed no interest in the account and that it is an “innocent entity” and has not colluded with Wong or any of the parties.

In addition, the plaintiffs sued for breach of contract, intentional infliction of emotional distress, a temporary restraining order against Wong and seek a preliminary and permanent injunction for Wong to immediately pay Burbas’s $228 million. He also sued for fraud, negligence and promissory estoppel.

Cliett did not return a request for comment.

Counsel has not yet appeared for SoFi and Wong.

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