When Wael Al-Mazeedi is deposed his responses will "undoubtedly" match everything WilmerHale drafted for him and submitted to Massachusetts State and US Federal Courts. Right?

We've previously addressed the fact that Al-Mazeedi and his lawyers have tried to paint a picture of a "web of conspiracy" to the courts.  They've tried to claim that everybody they are litigating against is involved in some nefarious collusion with "foreign" entities to remove him from his perch atop all the various BTU companies.

Given WilmerHale's TRACK RECORD with Wael Al-Mazeedi and BTU there is little doubt about the identity of the "drafter" (WilmerHale) of the pleadings filed on behalf of Al-Mazeedi and BTU.  Also, given WilmerHale's stature and obligations to the court, there is no doubt that they've always filed documents that were completely true.  Right? Absolutely...

Well, quality control was spotty in WilmerHale's pleadings.  They've filed numerous documents in which they simply crossed out the name of one party, say, Martin Betancourt, and wrote-in the name of another party, say, Daniel McBrearty.  However, sometimes they filed documents that contained the name of the wrong party.  Meaning, they forgot to write-in the name of the right party when they (almost verbatim) used a document filed in other lawsuits.  Our non-expert opinion is that this was a BOILERPLATE approach.

We have identified and documented several of these "lapses" previously.  We include the following comparison to highlight how WilmerHale used the "one size fits all" conspiracy approach in their Wael Al-Mazeedi/BTU pleadings.  We've taken excerpts from Wael Al-Mazeedi's affidavit in the Hayat litigation in March 2008 and included comparison excerpts from the Complaint filed in the Betancourt litigation (shown in red) in February 2009. 

As a someone commented elsewhere in this blog:

"Al-Mazeedi should be jumping at the chance to have the world hear the truth from his mouth. kind of strange that he's put off the chance to do this by rescheduling his deposition numerous times."

Well.  We're sure that Wael Al-Mazeedi and WilmerHale (even though they don't currently represent him) are anxiously awaiting the opportunity for Wael to be deposed so he can "validate" everything that's been represented to the courts.  Better yet, they must undoubtedly want all their litigation to go to trial so Wael can be questioned openly in court without the chance for WilmerHale (or currently Foley Hoag) to prepare the answers in advance. 

[Note:  In the comparison below Al-Mazeedi states that Mr. Leung was terminated for "cause."  We have information that indicates that this is not true.  Moreover, Mr. Leung has never had a chance to provide a rebuttal to this assertion.  To underscore our "understanding" we'll point out that Betancourt himself was never terminated for cause.  WilmerHale did us the favor of including Betancourt's termination letter in their filing so everybody can confirm this for themselves.]


Hayat Action - AFFIDAVIT OF WAEL AL-MAZEEDI (March 17, 2008)

Plaintiffs' Support For Their Suit Rests On An Employee Terminated For Cause

30. Much of the Verified Complaint appears to be offered in reliance on "a former high-level employee of [Ventures]." See for example, paragraph 47 of the verified complaint. Based on the following facts, I understand that the employee referred to is Kenny Leung ("Mr. Leung").

(a) Ventures hired Mr. Leung as a financial controller in September 2006. Mr. Leung agreed, as part of his employment, to maintain the confidentiality of information related to the business of Ventures and other BTU affiliates. Attached hereto as Exhibit 3 is a copy of his confidentiality agreement.

(b) In September 2007, with unanimous support from Ventures' management, I terminated Mr. Leung's employment for cause.

(c) Mr. Leung was terminated because he: tampered with accounting entries; destroyed or removed from Ventures' accounting records and at least 77 legal corporate documents and project agreements [Betancourt Litigation:  “physically removed hard copies of documents from Ventures to use for his own purposes, including highly proprietary and confidential documents on ongoing projects and market intelligence”] [Betancourt Litigation:  “copied approximately 12 gigabytes of company documents onto his personal computer, including documents from Payroll, Financial, Human Resources and files pertaining to particular projects”]; and on two specific occasions, including the one described in subparagraph (d) below, placed the Manager and the Fund at risk of default on up to $70 million of financial obligations to lenders. A forensic audit is currently underway to determine the extent of the damage.

(d) Mr. Leung played an instrumental role in complicating an ongoing independent audit for the Fund by first refusing to release the management accounts, writing to the Fund's industry partners in the project company claiming that I was personally behind the delay in issuing the accounts nearly triggering a default on our reporting requirements to the project lenders and directly interfering with the audit by writing defamatory memoranda [Betancourt Litigation:  “ ….. deeply resentful toward Mr. Al Mazeedi personally. He questioned the continuing viability of BTU and openly mocked Mr. Al Mazeedi's business practices and management style”]. Despite all these actions, prior to the end of last year the independent auditors issued the Fund a clean audit opinion. Also and in writing, Mr. Leung, metaphorically perhaps, threatened to "blow-torch" BTU Holdings [Betancourt Litigation:  “told employees that at least three ‘cruise missiles’ had been launched against the company”], and offered to assist Evolvence in preparing a suit against the Manager and me individually [Betancourt Litigation:  “told at least one other employee that he was planning to use his possession of confidential documents to gain favor with foreign investors or as leverage to obtain a “golden parachute” from Ventures”]; and. Attached as Exhibit 4 our true copies of Mr. Leung's cover memo to BTU and Mr. Leung's draft letter to Evolvence.