The Proof of Results
Trademark & Copyright Impoundment
Successful execution of Ex Parte Seizure Order, issued by the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, in favor of the Firm’s client, AK Futures LLC, and against LCF Labs, Inc. Assisted by U.S. Marshals, the Firm successfully impounded $53 million of inauthentic, counterfeit replicas of our client’s branded products, along with mirror-images of all data contained on all networked servers, PCs and smartphones located on the supplier’s expansive manufacturing plant. As a result of our efforts, our client’s Year over Year sales doubled, generating sustained annual revenues of $100 million
Securities Fraud – Private Equity
The Frost Firm represented a private equity fund in a lawsuit asserting securities fraud and related claims against Hispanic Television Network, Inc., et al., the largest Hispanic television network in the U.S. at that time.
The Firm prevailed after trial and the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California entered Judgment awarding $5,475,290.00 in favor of the client and against HTVN.
Breach of Trusts and Fiduciary Duty
Mediated settlement of Trust dispute in California Probate Court. For the client, a beneficiary, we petitioned to remove and surcharge the Trustee for breach of trust and self-dealing, and we objected to the Trust Accountings. Before trial, in a mediation that lasted 24 hours, we negotiated a settlement involving a tax efficient separation of interests, and transfers of cash and real estate worth $8.5 million to a separate Trust for our client’s benefit and control.
Breach of Fiduciary Duty
The Frost Firm recovered a $1.8 million Judgment after trial in favor of the Firm’s clients and against LPL Financial - the largest organization of independent financial advisers in the United States - and an LPL Investment Advisor. The Firm represented a brother and sister who were orphaned as young children. Their parents left them a modest sum of money, which grew over time, but when they reached adulthood they discovered their broker and trustee of their family’s trust defrauded them out of the entire inheritance over a 20-year period.
Trademark & Copyright Infringement
The Frost Firm recovered Federal Court Judgments totaling $1,773,000.00 in favor of our client, AK Futures LLC, against six wholesalers engaged in selling and distributing inauthentic counterfeit replicas of our client’s nationally top-selling hemp-derived CBD products. The Awards included statutory damages, attorneys’ fees and costs, and Permanently Injunctions, which permanently enjoined these Defendants from ever marketing or selling products bearing the client’s Cake® trademark, copyrighted design logo, and anything confusingly similar to our client’s popular brand.
Breach of Fiduciary Duty
The Firm recovered an Award after trial of $1 million for our client, a pathologist near retirement age who resides in Phoenix, Arizona. In this lawsuit, we successfully proved our client’s investment advisor, Independent Financial Group, LLC, breached its fiduciary duty when it mismanaged our client’s retirement accounts in pursuit of commissions over an extended 10-year period.
Securities Fraud
Recovered structured settlement of Arizona Federal Court action for private equity fund client, after the Court denied broker-dealer defendant’s motion to dismiss securities fraud claims for violations of Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 of the Securities Exchange Act arising out of a healthcare-receivables factoring enterprise.
Breach of Contract and Fiduciary Duty
Settlement of a JAMS Arbitration for breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and conversion, arising out of our client’s private investments in pools of distressed and non-performing deeds of trust secured by real property. On the eve of the JAMS Arbitration Hearing, we recovered our clients’ entire principal investments, and all counterclaims against our client were dismissed in their entirety.
Breach of Fiduciary Duty
The Firm recovered an Award after trial of $622,000 against Fidelity Investments for our elderly client, who requested the firm open a joint account with his wife designated, designating them “Joint Tenants” with automatic rights of survivorship. The firm mistakenly designated the couple as “Joint Tenants in Common,” without automatic rights of survivorship, causing the securities to become involved in protracted probate court proceedings upon the death of a co-tenant. The Award is unique, among other reasons, because there is no such thing as a “Joint Tenants in Common” account designation in California, but the term is often erroneously used by the financial services industry on their account forms and policies and procedures manuals. The law in California provides that the term “Joint Tenants”, used alone or with any other words, automatically creates a right of survivorship, so a designation as “Joint Tenants in Common” is improper, and a highly problematic misnomer. When our client’s wife died a few months later, the firm refused to correct its obvious error and instead blamed our elderly client for causing the problem. The amount awarded to the client was approximately $100,000.00 more than the total compensatory damages we requested at trial and included an award of $272,000.00 in legal fees and costs.
Areas of Practice
Expert Legal Counsel for Your Business
Our corporate lawyer in San Diego represents both entrepreneurs and established businesses in complex transactional and business litigation matters.
Intellectual property is often the most valuable commodity that a business can possess. Licensing rights can hold millions of dollars of value, as can the ability to stop a competitor from abusing your intellectual property claims.
Our securities law firm frequently and successfully represents investors and brokers in arbitrations before FINRA (formerly the NASD), often the exclusive forum for disputes involving the financial services industry.
The Frost Firm provides sophisticated probate and trust litigation services to clients nationwide faced with prospective or pending disputes in state or federal courts in the Southern California area. The firm is based in San Diego, California, and appears regularly in courts throughout Southern California.
The Frost Firm acts as an outsourced general counsel, providing expert legal support to family offices, boutique private equity firms, broker-dealers, operating companies, and other clients.