By admin | Published: August 25, 2009

Todd Levine
Friday, August 14, 2009
Advertising & Marketing
Businesses, brands make fans of Facebook friends and strangers
South Florida Business Journal – by Jeff Zbar

The YMCA of Broward County regularly e-mails many of its 30,000 members, and sends fliers about news and events. But, administrators wanted an even closer member relationship.
So in July, they created a “fan” page on Facebook. Now, almost 100 people have become fans. Dialogue and the organization’s brand are growing, said Judi Erickson, the YMCA’s director of marketing communications.
“It’s interesting to see the dialogue and activity,” she said. “It’s a good opportunity for members to communicate with each other, and for us to be a resource.”
When Facebook users get the message that someone “suggested you become a fan of” something, what does that mean? For some executives, it means Facebook has become a marketing tool for business.
Social media can empower business branding. But, while LinkedIn and Twitter have obvious business tie-ins for some, Facebook only of late has earned similar appeal. Many organizations, companies and products have created Facebook fan pages so brand loyalists, organization members and those who use the product can share information that’s relevant to the group, said Margo Berman, a professor of advertising at Florida International University.
“It’s a powerful communication device because you know you’re communicating with a highly interested audience,” said Berman, the author of “Street-Smart Advertising: How to Win the Battle of the Buzz” and “The Brains Behind Great Ad Campaigns.” “But, instead of creating commercials or participating in contests, fans are talking about what interests them. They’re posting images, inviting each other to events, and sharing insights.”
For Miami law firm Kluger, Kaplan, Silverman, Katzen & Levine’s 116 fans, the page is a testament to its changing client base, partner Todd Levine said. Tech-savvy and keen for news and information delivered fast, clients and prospects are prone to engage in a more personal dialogue with the firm, as opposed to the firm “simply distributing information,” he said.
“Social media also lets us showcase the more human side of our law firm, our values, people and culture,” he said. “We may be recognized as strong litigators in the courtroom, but social media vehicles provide a window into who we are.” Argo Digital Solutions’ five-month-old fan page has tallied 191 fans, who read about technology updates, distribution deals and industry news, and watch company videos, said Jason Kates, founder and CEO of the digital out-of-home media company. The page also helps Argo strengthen its brand when prospective clients or partners perform due diligence about the company, he said.
“Before anyone engages your services or even begins a serious conversation, they will thoroughly check out you and your company’s work, credibility and reputation,” Kates said. “Facebook is usually on the first page of those searches.”
Updating a fan page can be labor intensive, said the YMCA’s Erickson, who invests about an hour a week, with the goal of posting about a dozen updates a month.
Hollywood attorney David W. Singer, who spends an hour or two a day on Facebook, has more than 350 fans.
“Many are friends, some are strangers … people beyond my normal reach,” he said.
Posting requires a sensitivity and discretion. Tom Moleta, president of Miami ad shop Turbulence, was recently set to hire a prospective creative director for a project. When Moleta saw pictures of the man’s partying ways on Facebook, he decided to hire someone else.
“It’s interesting to me that people divulge so much personal stuff on Facebook,” he said.
Added Levine: “Social media is a great way to communicate with our target audiences, so long as we are communicating the right information.”THE DETAILS:
A fan page can be set up either as part of an individual user’s account, or as its own account. To set up a fan page, go to Facebook and log in, or create an account.
At the bottom left corner of the screen, click the Group icon (with an image of two people). Click on Create a Group on the right side of the page. Then, scroll down to Select Category. Choose “Just for Fun.” Then, right next to that, see Select Type. Choose “Fan Clubs.”

jeffzbar@gmail.com | (954) 346-4393

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By admin | Published: August 25, 2009

THE DAILY BUSINESS REVIEW – Securities
Father, daughter say they were duped of $1.3 million
August 11, 2009 By: Billy Shields

Miami Beach accounting firm Gerson Preston Robinson is being sued by a Miami woman and her father who claim they were bilked out of almost $1.3 million invested through the firm in development companies that owned no property.

Sheri Cholodofsky and Barry Barak sued Gerson Preston and firm partner Alan Lips last week in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, claiming the accountant promised they’d make a 100 percent return on investments within four years. The lawsuit alleges violations of state securities laws, sale of unregistered securities and fraud.

Lips pretended that he invested in the same development companies when he was selling the father and daughter on the investments — ultimately coaxing $1.3 million from them between 2002 and 2006, according to the complaint.

The plaintiffs contend Lips sold them shares of eight companies that he represented owned real estate and planned condo and other developments. But the plaintiffs later discovered the companies actually owned interests in financially struggling entities and didn’t own any property, according to the suit.

“We thought [the companies] actually owned the real estate,” said plaintiff attorney Bruce Katzen, a partner with Kluger Kaplan Silverman Katzen & Levine in Miami, referring to the LLCs. “As things went bad, my clients met with Lips and said, ‘OK, well at least we own the property.’ Then we found out that we really don’t own real estate in this entity. We own an interest in an entity, and that entity is underwater or in bankruptcy.”

Bruce KatzenLips’ attorney, Jose Rojas, a partner with the Rojas Law Firm in Miami, said Lips consulted with an attorney before carrying out Barak and Cholodofsky’s investment wishes and that the investments were legal and complied with the law.

Lips “looked to an attorney for advice and followed the advice,” Rojas said. “This appears to be another one of these cases of people looking for somebody to blame when the economy goes south. Instead of taking their losses, they’re looking to sue somebody to try to recover their money.”

Gerson Preston’s attorney, Tew Cardenas shareholder Joseph DeMaria of Miami, said the accounting firm didn’t sell securities to the couple but provided accounting services.

“Alan Lips wore two hats, he was the lead accountant and at a certain point in time he did work for a developer and he raised money for the developer,” DeMaria said. “Is Gerson Preston liable for Alan Lips’ conduct when he was wearing his other hat? Our position is no.”

The plaintiffs allege that Lips and the accounting firm sold securities without registering them with the Florida Office of Financial Regulation, claiming they were exempt transactions. But those transactions did not meet the exemption requirement under Florida statutes because Lips solicited business and did not make necessary documented disclosures to the plaintiffs, the complaint contends.

The defendants “did not register these securities, and they’re also not licensed to sell them,” Katzen said. “Alan would come in and say, ‘Look, I’ve got this great investment, and you’re like part of the family.’ A stockbroker would be different, but coming from a CPA that you feel is reliable, they felt it was credible.”

DeMaria said it is still an open question whether the investments could be characterized as securities.

DeMaria said the plaintiffs were happy as long as they were making money. He said Barak and Cholodofsky got their principal back and turned a profit on their first $100,000 investment with Lips in 2002.

In that investment, the plaintiffs bought shares in Cobblestone Investors, a limited liability company Lips controls that uses the same Miami Beach address as Gerson Preston, according state corporate records. The company was created to develop real estate in Stuart, according to the lawsuit.

“What they’ve done is reach out to look for violations of the securities law and then tried to go a step further to go for the deep pocket because the economy wiped out the value of these developments,” DeMaria said. “Barak himself knew exactly what was going on. He’s a very sophisticated man, and he was basically advising his daughter.”

Cholodofsky befriended Lips in 1999, according to the complaint. Three years later, she began to invest with Lips.

Seven of the eight companies she and her father bought stakes in share the same address with Gerson Preston.

Lips invested the money in limited liability companies such as Star Investment, Austin Davie Investment and Monte Carlo Investment, which owned other real estate entities. He used the Gerson Preston offices to meet with the plaintiffs and handle their transactions, according to the complaint.

Katzen claims as many as two dozen other investor groups bought shares through Gerson Preston in a similar arrangements.

DeMaria said Barak and Cholodofsky knew intimate details of the investments they bought and characterized the lawsuit as an effort to recoup losses in the wake of the real estate collapse.

“It’s like musical chairs, and they want Gerson Preston to be the one without a chair when the music stops,” DeMaria said.

Billy Shields can be reached at (305) 347-6649.

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By admin | Published: August 25, 2009

LAW.COM
Attorney Embarks on Multistate Hunt for Boom-Time Investor’s Assets
Suit is ‘certainly one of the signs of our times: a real estate deal gone bad,’ says one Miami attorney
Paola Iuspa-Abbot
Daily Business Review
July 31, 2009

In another chapter of a long-running fight over a failed land deal, attorney Abbey Kaplan is about to hit the road in search of more than $16 million awarded a client over lost profits.
Kaplan represented Downtown Associates in its suit against New Jersey investor Eli Weinstein and his related companies. And while Downtown won the suit, getting paid is the next step in a five-year-old journey that now is likely to take Kaplan to New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
“My suspicion is that his assets are located in the Northeast, primarily in New Jersey,” said Kaplan, a partner in Kluger Kaplan Silverman Katzen & Levine in Miami.
As some investors, sellers and lenders head to court in the aftermath of the implosion of the commercial real estate market, more lawyers could be joining the hunt for money over soured deals.
Abbey Kaplan
Downtown Associates’ suit against Weinstein reflects what is happening in today’s marketplace, said attorney Michael Joblove, a partner with Genovese Joblove & Battista in Miami.
“That’s certainly one of the signs of our times: a real estate deal gone bad,” Joblove said.
Joblove, who was not involved in the Downtown-Weinstein case, has seen a surge in business from real estate-related lawsuits.
Joblove and Kaplan both predict more attorneys will be heading out of Florida in pursuit of assets of out-of-state investors who flocked to South Florida during the boom years.
The judgment stems from a lawsuit that began in 2004 when Downtown Associates, led by Miami real estate broker Rodrigo Nino, signed a contract to buy a 1.98-acre parking lot in downtown Miami for $22.25 million.
The sellers of the property at 16 S.E. Second St. were David Stone and the late Guillermo Sostchin.
In August 2005, Nino’s company agreed to sell the purchase contract on the parking lot for $46.5 million to Weinstein’s Nexus Development Group.
Closing was set for October, according to court documents. But Weinstein had trouble coming up with $560,000 for the deposit and delayed the closing three times.
Downtown Associates terminated the contract in January 2006, and soon after, Weinstein sued to force the deal to move forward. The suit was dismissed in early 2008 and Downtown Associates then sued Weinstein to recover the profit it said it lost because of the deal’s many delays.
“The market was so hot crazy that we could have earned at least a reasonable $11 million profit,” said Kaplan, referring to the days when property values were continually on the rise because of speculators.
“But they prevented us from doing that. There was a window of opportunity where we could have sold the property to somebody else; and we didn’t do that because we believed they were going to move forward with the contract.”
Nino got the site re-zoned to allow a mixed-use project designed by noted Miami architect Chad Oppenheim to include twin 50-story towers with 692 condos, 160 hotel rooms, 120,000 square feet of retail space and 80,000 square feet of offices.
Despite the work, Nino’s company never acquired the land. Stone and Sostchin ended up selling to another investor for about $22 million in 2007, according to Miami-Dade property records.
On May 1, 2009, 11th Circuit Court Judge Mark King Leban ordered Weinstein and his companies, Nexus and Pine Projects, to pay Downtown Associates $16.2 million including lost profit, interest and professional fees, according to court documents.
Nino did not return several phone calls for comment. Weinstein could not be reached for comment. No one answered the phone in his New Jersey office, and he didn’t return a call left at his New Jersey house.
In addition to Downtown Associates, Nino is founder and president of Prodigy International, a company with offices in Miami and New York that sells condominiums in South Florida, New York, Panama and Mexico.
As the first step toward going after Weinstein’s out-of-state properties, Kaplan has hired law firms in New York and New Jersey to record the judgment there. He said he may do the same in Pennsylvania.
Kaplan is also targeting properties Weinstein may own in Florida. The lawyer is waiting for several banks to provide financial information Weinstein submitted when he applied for loans that he personally guaranteed, Kaplan said.
Weinstein was very active in South Florida real estate during the boom times, raising millions from investors in the Northeast and investing in New Jersey and other states.
Weinstein and related companies bought four sites in Miami’s Design District early in the decade and planned to build nearly $250 million worth of condo projects.
He borrowed nearly $9 million from Compass Bank, Broadway Bank of Chicago and Builder Financial to buy the land. By 2007, the lenders had launched foreclosure action. Some of the sites were seized by banks and the foreclosures on others are pending.
In 2005, a Weinstein company paid nearly $27 million for One Flagler, a 15-story building at 14 N.E. First Ave. The plan was to convert the 55-year-old building designed by Morris Lapidus into office condos.
Weinstein also acquired the 15-story One Flagler office building in downtown Miami. He has since split from the partnership that owns the office building, which is also facing foreclosure by Mellon United National Bank.
Some of Weinstein’s investors sued in New York and Philadelphia, claiming they invested millions in his ventures but never got the return promised on their investments.
Some of the suits have been settled. He won other suits, but they are now being appealed, said Howard Kleinhendler, a partner with Wachtel & Masyr in New York. He represented Weinstein in several of the lawsuits.
Weinstein blamed his financial troubles on the collapse of the real estate market, Kleinhendler said.
“In all the cases, Weinstein is putting forward a vigorous defense,” he said. “He said investors invested not just in projects but also in his company and when the times were going well, they received very lucrative returns. And then when the market turned, unfortunately, they started pointing fingers.”

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By admin | Published: August 19, 2009

Todd LevineDAILY BUSINESS REVIEW – JULY 2009

Commercial Real Estate
Broker awarded $3.4 million in owed commissions

July 21, 2009
By: Billy Shields

Miami commercial real estate brokerage has won a $3.4 million judgment after claiming a group of corporate defendants controlled by the defunct partnership Leviev Boymelgreen Developers and Africa Israel Properties didn’t pay agreed commissions.

Laquer Corporate Realty, controlled by prominent broker Edie Laquer, took the developers to court claiming breach of contract on a stalled deal. Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Ronald Dresnick ruled in her favor July 13.

“Key to the judge’s ruling was that the defendants took the deposit, spent the money,” said Todd Levine, a partner with Kluger Kaplan Silverman Katzen & Levine in Miami. “The judge found that Laquer was entitled to its $3 million plus interest.”

Norman Segall, a Ruden McClosky partner in Miami who represents the sellers in Laquer Corporate Realty Group’s lawsuit, said he is filing a motion for rehearing and plans to appeal.

“We think the judge made a mistake, with all respect to the judge,” he said.

The lawsuit centers on a sales contract between the defendants and 150 NE 7th LLC, a company controlled by Boca Raton developer Arthur Falcone and Palm Beach Gardens developer Marc Roberts.

The defendants owned parcels of land that were being assembled by Falcone and Roberts for the proposed Miami Worldcenter project, a nine-block mixed-use development near the American Airlines Arena. Laquer was hired by Leviev Boymelgreen principal Shaya Boymelgreen in January 2006 to find a buyer for the properties. In May 2006, Laquer sealed a deal to sell the properties to Falcone’s and Roberts’ company.

After Boymelgreen and Africa-Israel broke up, Africa-Israel was left owning the land involved in the deal.

Laquer’s company contends the defendants then attempted to carve her out of a subsequent March 2007 sales agreement that was crafted after the partners broke up.

Laquer’s company filed suit in April 2008, alleging the defendants kept a $6 million deposit from 150 NE 7th LLC in a late 2006 without paying her a commission. The original May 2006 sales agreement called for a purchase price of $88.7 million.

Africa Israel also has declared 150 NE 7th LLC in default on the second sales agreement, according to Segall. Under that deal, the LLC extended the planned March 2008 closing date by chipping in more deposit money until the pot grew to about $18 million, Segall said.

“They extend and they extend, and eventually the market goes south, and fast forward to January 2009 they have now extended and their deposit has grown, and they attempt to get out of the deal,” he said.

Segall said Laquer principal Edie Laquer is not entitled to money until another lawsuit is resolved that was filed by 150 NE 7th LLC against the same defendants seeking the return of the first deposit.

Laquer has also claimed in a third lawsuit that she holds a 10 percent interest in 150 NE 7th LLC. She referred inquiries to Levine.

The six defendants in the present suit are Arena Garage, Block 42 Acquisition, Independence Garage, Irene Garage, Market Garage and Seagull Garage, and they own a combined 23 acres between Biscayne Boulevard and Northwest 1st Avenue from 5th Street to 11th Street, and are controlled by Africa Israel.

This isn’t the first real estate commission lawsuit to go through Miami-Dade Circuit Court in recent months.

In May, the 3rd District Court of Appeal gave brokerage Lonestar Alternative Solutions the green light to go after Leviev Boymelgreen Soleil Developers to collect commissions owed to Lonestar on condo sales that didn’t close since 2005.

Lonestar claims Soleil unfairly refused to pay the last installment of its commissions after Lonestar’s clients canceled their purchase contracts. Lonestar claimed its buyers canceled the contracts because Soleil changed the design of the units and, therefore, Lonestar should still get paid the commissions.

The 3rd DCA reversed Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Jennifer Bailey, who dismissed Lonestar’s complaint, saying the company did not have a cause of action. The appellate panel ordered Bailey to set a trial.

Leviev Boymelgreen returned deposits on Soleil units in 2007.

Leviev Boymelgreen is one of the biggest flops of the downturn in South Florida. In 2004, the company backed by diamond billionaire Lev Leviev and Boymelgreen, a New York developer, announced plans to develop 3.5 million square feet of mixed-use space at six projects valued at $1.5 billion by 2006. The 63-story Marquis condo tower was its one notable achievement.

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By admin | Published: August 19, 2009

Alan KlugerTHE LOS ANGELES TIMES – JULY 2009

Chow restaurant lawsuit: Too many Chows in the kitchen?

In one corner, there’s Michael Chow — Mr. Chow, himself. In the other, there’s Philippe Chow, an ex-employee with his own upscale Chinese restaurants. The turf war has landed in court.

By Betty Hallock
July 15, 2009

Is there room enough in the world of upscale Chinese restaurants for more than one man named Chow?

There is Michael Chow, the designer and art collector from Shanghai by way of London who founded the chain of famous Mr. Chow restaurants in 1968. And there is Philippe Chow, who worked for Mr. Chow for more than 25 years before starting his own chain of Philippe restaurants in 2005.

 Last week, Mr. Chow sued Philippe in federal district court in Miami, where a Mr. Chow outpost is set to open within wonton-throwing distance of a Philippe restaurant. The lawsuit claims Philippe Chow — who changed his name from Chak Yam Chau — used the Chow name to profit from “the trademark rights of the Mr. Chow restaurants and the real Mr. Chow.”

Written as aggrandizing drama, the suit contends that Philippe Chow “was directly privy to the treasure chest of details, know-how, skills and techniques which he and [his partner Stratis] Morfogen misappropriated in an attempt to unfairly imitate the Mr. Chow experience.”

It claims that Philippe Chow “was a chopping assistant, a chopper, an assistant chopper-expeditor and ultimately . . . leading expeditor [who] never rose to the position of executive chef as he falsely claims” and that he set out “to steal the very identity of Mr. Chow.”

Philippe Chow countered in a statement, “I specifically chose to name my restaurant Philippe to alleviate any confusion with Mr. Chow. I have nothing but respect for Michael Chow, and the fact that we have the same last name is pure coincidence.”

The suit (much like well-timed publicity) comes as both chains are expanding. There are Mr. Chow restaurants in London, New York and Beverly Hills, with outposts coming soon to Las Vegas and Miami. Until 2006, when he opened a second Manhattan restaurant (in Tribeca), Michael Chow hadn’t launched a Mr. Chow restaurant in nearly 30 years. His spinoff, Eurochow, opened in Westwood in 1999 and closed in 2006.

The first Mr. Chow hit London in the ’60s, the Beverly Hills restaurant was the place to see and be seen from the mid-’70s, and Mr. Chow on 57th Street in New York opened a few years later, attracting the likes of Keith Haring, Andy Warhol and Madonna. His Las Vegas and Miami restaurants are something of a new charge.

Philippe Chow and partner Morfogen, a former Mr. Chow customer, have opened Philippe restaurants in New York, Mexico and Miami, with one in Las Vegas in the works. Another is set to open in West Hollywood this fall in the former Dolce space on Melrose Avenue.

“We have taken every measure not to confuse the customer,” Morfogen says. “The decor, the whole experience is completely different. The only confusion is that sometimes people think we’re a French restaurant.”

As the story goes, Morfogen was a patron of Mr. Chow’s in New York when his wife gave $20 to a busboy who put him in contact with Philippe Chow. Philippe Chow left Mr. Chow in August 2005, and the first Philippe restaurant opened soon after on 60th Street.

Signature dishes at Mr. Chow include ma mignon (filet mignon in a crispy crust), chicken Joanna (fried, breaded chicken breast), chicken satay with “secret sauce,” green prawns that get their color from a spinach “bath,” and Mr. Chow noodles — part of a “daily noodle making show.”

There are some similar dishes at Philippe — “house me mignon,” green prawns, Mr. Cheng’s noodles, and chicken satay “prepared in chef Chow’s famous cream sauce.”

“There are dishes that are similar or the same,” Morfogen says. “If Michael Chow believes he has a trademark on chicken satay, then McDonald’s might as well sue Burger King over the burger.”

He added: “If [Philippe] is just a ‘chopper,’ then how is he making these dishes? It contradicts itself. When I was a customer at Mr. Chow, he was introduced to me as the chef on several occasions.”

According to the lawsuit, it wasn’t until after he left Mr. Chow that Philippe Chow changed his name, but a media release sent in response to the lawsuit said “he did in fact change his name from Chak Yam Chau to the more westernized Philippe Chow, when he arrived here from Hong Kong in 1977. Many people, including Michael Chow, who was born Zhou Yinghua, change their given Chinese names to make them more familiar to the English speaking population.”

The lawsuit is anything but dry reading, depicting Michael Chow as a visionary who brought a designer restaurant serving “the complex and varied cuisine of China” to the West (served on fine china at steep prices) and Philippe Chow as “a lowest-level kitchen assistant.”

“We tried to make it so that it was easy to read and quite frankly, so that a judge reading it would be interested in seeing the real human loss to Michael Chow,” says Alan Kluger, Michael Chow’s lawyer. (Kluger, a member with Miami law firm Kluger Kaplan Silverman Katzen & Levine, says they are seeking damages that could reach eight figures.)

The suit tells the story of Michael Chow and his “lifetime body of work,” with references to his bringing the “ancient art of hand-pulled noodle-making to his restaurants” (”demonstrated in the ‘Kung Fu Panda’ movie DVD”) and his 30th-anniversary party where “it is unlikely that such a famous and diverse group of people has ever been brought together before, or since, to commemorate such an event.”

It claims that he’s an innovator as the first to serve Chinese meals in courses, has been heralded as a cultural icon alongside McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc and is “the one and only Mr. Chow.”

betty.hallock@latimes.com

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By admin | Published: August 19, 2009

THE MIAMI HERALD – JULY 2009

Philippe vs. Mr. Chow: culinary Hatfields and McCoys?
logo
 The tension between enemies and soon to be neighbors Philippe and Mr. Chow has gotten a lot more serious than we thought. According to a lawsuit filed yesterday in Florida Federal Court by Alan Kluger of Miami-based law firm Kluger Kaplan Silverman Katzen & Levine, restaurateur Mr. Chow is chop-suing nemesis Philippe Chow, whose eateries—including South Beach’s Philippe— Mr. Chow contends are a rip-off of his menus and his trademarked good name.  Michael Chow, the original Mr. Chow, has been furious with Chak Yam Chau ever since the former “food chopper” for Chow resigned in 2005, changed his name to Philippe Chow and opened restaurants in New York, according to the trademark-infringement lawsuit. According to Kluger, the final straw came in 2008, when Philippe opened a Miami outpost at the Gansevoort Hotel, 100 yards from a long-planned location that Mr. Chow will open next month at the W on South Beach. Said Kluger “Simply put, Philippe is just not who he says he is!  When Philippe resigned from his job as a food chopper (he was never a chef) in 2005, he signed his resignation as Philippe Chau.  He now goes by the new name Philippe Chow.  Furthermore, Philippe has purchased sponsored links on Google for “Mr. Chow” so that when the real MR. CHOW is searched for, Phillippe’s name and link comes up as Mr. Chow.  Phlippe is a fraud!”  Our request for a comment from the Philippe side of things has yet to be fulfilled.

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