MIAMI, FL – February 17, 2021- Bast Amron partner Jeffrey Bast was Featured in The Daily Business Review article, “Veteran Miami Bankruptcy Lawyer’s First Jury Trials Lead to $3 Million Award.” Jeffrey Bast discussed the first taste of trial by jury after practicing for over 25 years, offering lessons about placing economics over emotions in litigation.
Following three years of contentious litigation, including numerous discovery abuses by the defendant and weeks-long bifurcated jury trials in Dallas district court, Bast Amron lawyers Jeffrey P. Bast, Peter J. Klock, II, Lissette M. Carreras, paralegal Nakeisha “Keisha” Jones, and Bast Amron alumni Zakarij N. Laux secured a final judgment in excess of $3M on behalf of firm clients Valtech Solutions, Inc. and Valtech Services, Inc., which included damages, attorneys’ fees, costs, litigation expenses, and a $25,000 sanction against the defendant, Cornerstone Staffing Solutions, Inc.
Valtech is a global digital agency that provides digital marketing and technology services to companies such as L’Oreal, Levi Strauss & Co., Heineken, and Toyota. The company divested its temporary IT staffing business assets and contracts to a national staffing company, Cornerstone. The purchase price was to be paid in two tranches: $1.9M to be paid at closing, followed by a later payment adjustment to bring the total purchase price up to a specified multiple of earnings. When the payment adjustment came due, Cornerstone refused to pay.
In the article covered by the DBR, Jeffrey Bast was quoted:
“Sometimes clients will fight on principle because they think they’re right, but whether you think you’re right or not is not always the right driver for the calculus,” Bast said. “Economics should always take precedence over emotions, and this is a case where I believe the defendants thought they were right and didn’t accept the risk that they could be wrong, or that someone else would think they were wrong, and it’s not how business decisions should be made.”
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