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By: Jonathan H. Freiberger In today’s Blog, we revisit the requirement in RPAPL 1351(1) that a foreclosure sale occur within 90 days of the date of the judgment of foreclosure and sale. By way of brief background, and as previously discussed in this BLOG, the 90-day requirement became effective in December of 2016. However, the rule does not apply in situations where the sale occurred prior to the effective date of the amendment. U.S. Bank, N.A. v. Peralta , 191 A.D.3d 924,

By:  Jeffrey M. Haber On many occasions, we have written about Ponzi schemes that have been the subject of enforcement actions brought by, and/or settlements with, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC” or the “Commission”). We remain unsurprised by the frequency with which people operate a Ponzi scheme and do so by exploiting the trust and friendship that exist in groups of people who have something in common, such as a religious group, an ethnic group, or a community

By:  Jeffrey M. Haber A claim for fraud requires “a material misrepresentation of a fact, knowledge of its falsity, an intent to induce reliance, justifiable reliance by the plaintiff and damages.” In First Trinity Life Ins. Co. v. Advance Funding LLC , 2025 N.Y. Slip Op. 03133 (1st Dept. May 22, 2025) ( here ), discussed below, knowledge of falsity ( i.e. , scienter) and reliance were the elements at issue. First Trinity concerned the assignment of lottery winnings. A form

By: Jeffrey M. Haber In Libman v. Hershey Co. , 2025 N.Y. Slip Op. 31769(U), (Sup. Ct., N.Y. County May 5, 2025) ( here ), the motion court was asked to consider whether a front-of-the-package label on the Twizzlers candy wrapper violated General Business Law (“GBL”) §§ 349 and 350. Front-of-package labels are labels that manufacturers put on the front of packaged foods to give consumers basic nutrition information in a way that is easy to understand and allows them to compar

By:  Jeffrey M. Haber A contract is an agreement between two or more parties to do something ( e.g. , provide goods or services) in exchange for a benefit. When one or more parties to a contract fail to perform a term in their agreement, they are in breach of that agreement. Most breaches fall into one of two categories: actual or anticipatory. In the former, a party to the contract fails or refuses to perform his/her obligations under the agreement or performs his/her oblig

By: Jonathan H. Freiberger In today’s article, we will discuss Yesmin v. Aliobaba, LLC , an Opinion and Order rendered on May 14, 2025, in which the Appellate Division, Second Department, held that “a notice of pendency that was unexpired at the time of the foreclosure sale has no effect on the title acquired by a good faith purchaser for value from a sale conducted pursuant to the judgment of foreclosure and sale.” By way of brief background, the borrower in Yesmin secured

By:  Jeffrey M. Haber The allure of guaranteed profits from sophisticated crypto asset and foreign exchange trading served as the underlying predicate for the claims asserted by the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) against Ramil Palafox (“Defendant”), the founder of Praetorian Group International Corporation (“PGI Global”), a now-defunct entity he controlled, in S.E.C. v. Palafox , Case 1:25-cv-00681 (E.D. Va. 2025). The case marks the first crypto enforcement actio

By: Jeffrey M. Haber This Blog has often noted that “securities fraud comes in all shapes and sizes.” ( E.g. ,  here .) Though the alleged fraudulent scheme may differ, the types of schemes implemented tend to fall into one of the following (non-exclusive) categories: financial statement/accounting fraud; pyramid schemes; Ponzi schemes; pump-and-dump schemes; affinity fraud; promissory note fraud; Internet fraud; “microcap” stock fraud; and fraud concerning information about

By: Jonathan H. Freiberger Today’s article relates to a decision in a mortgage foreclosure action that combines numerous concepts about which we have previously written. We will quickly revisit CPLR 3215(c) , which provides, in pertinent part, that: If the plaintiff fails to take proceedings for the entry of judgment within one year after the default, the court shall not enter judgment but shall dismiss the complaint as abandoned, without costs, upon its own initiative or on