Blue Citi LLC v. 5Barz International Inc.
- Valerie Caproni
- 1:16-cv-09027
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 62
In Blue Citi v. 5Barz International, Judge Valerie Caproni ordered 5Barz to respond to a motion seeking to add Cubera entities to the receivership.
Blue Citi, 5Barz International, Inc., Andrew K. Levi as receiver, and the Cubera entities named in the expansion request would be affected. The supplied order immediately required 5Barz to respond but did not yet place the Cubera entities into the receivership.
What happened
Blue Citi, LLC obtained a judgment against 5Barz International, Inc., and the court appointed Andrew K. Levi to control 5Barz’s property and help satisfy that judgment.
Levi asked the court to expand the receivership to Cubera International, Inc., Cubera Management, Inc., and other Cubera-affiliated entities. He alleged that 5Barz and Cubera shared an office, employees, and directors; that 5Barz owned part of Cubera; and that Cubera paid some of 5Barz’s expenses.
Judge Valerie Caproni did not decide the expansion request in the supplied order. She ordered 5Barz to respond by March 18, 2020, explaining why the receivership order should not be modified to include the Cubera entities.
The detailed version
- Blue Citi LLC v. 5Barz International Inc. · No. 1:16-cv-09027
- Valerie Caproni
- Mar. 5, 2020
Background
Blue Citi previously obtained a judgment against 5Barz International, Inc. The opinion states that the judgment totaled $308,543.98, plus any applicable interest, after awards for damages, prejudgment interest, and attorney’s fees. The court later appointed Andrew K. Levi as receiver over 5Barz’s real and personal property. A receiver is a person appointed by a court to take control of property, preserve it, and use it as authorized by the court.
Receiver’s request
Levi filed an emergency motion asking the court to expand the receivership to include Cubera International, Inc., Cubera Management, Inc., and other Cubera-affiliated entities. The motion asserted that 5Barz and Cubera operated as one collective enterprise without proper separation between their corporate affairs. It pointed to their shared office, overlapping directors and employees, 5Barz’s alleged ownership interest in Cubera, and Cubera’s payments of certain 5Barz expenses.
The motion also relied on corporate records stating that 5Barz Technology Holdings, Inc. changed its name to Cubera Management, Inc. in October 2019. It further stated that 5Barz had identified 5Barz Technology Holdings as an entity in which it owned shares, and therefore argued that Cubera Management was already a receivership asset. The receiver also described payments totaling more than $60,000 that Cubera allegedly made for 5Barz expenses between December 23, 2019, and February 11, 2020.
Court’s action
The supplied order does not grant or deny the motion to expand the receivership. Instead, Judge Valerie Caproni ordered 5Barz to file a response by March 18, 2020, stating why the court should not modify the receiver order to include the Cubera entities. The order therefore set a response deadline and left the expansion request unresolved in the supplied text.
Classification
This is a procedural order because it concerns administration and possible expansion of an existing receivership and does not decide the underlying legal dispute or the receiver’s allegations on the merits.
Read the full 62-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.