Ed Fagan

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Ed Fagan (actually Edward Fagan ; born October 20, 1952 in Harlingen , Texas ) is an American lawyer and former attorney who mainly dealt with international damages suits. He is a member of the World Jewish Congress .

Early life

Fagan's father left the family. Fagan has two brothers, Wayne (a San Antonio lawyer ) and Abraham. He followed his brother Abraham, an Orthodox Jew , to Israel and initially wanted to become a rabbi himself . Soon after, he went back to the United States and attended the Cardozo Law School at Yeshiva University in New York , which he graduated in 1980.

For several years he represented tobacco and pharmaceutical companies against liability suits. In the late 1980s, he was looking for new challenges and founded an Exploration Club with the aim of taking wealthy vacationers on sailing trips to exotic locations accompanied by marine and environmental scientists. In 1991, he founded the Odyssoe Foundation as a non-commercial offshoot of the club to promote environmental research . The company failed and Fagan became a lawyer again.

Fagan & Associates

In 1994, Fagan founded the Fagan & Associates law firm in Lower Manhattan . Due to legal disputes with Nynex Corp. and their successor Verizon Communications in connection with debts of the Odyssoe Foundation and because of unpaid rents, he had to give up his offices and rented rooms from another law firm in the World Trade Center . He was licensed to work in New York and New Jersey .

Since 2005, Fagan has defended himself against allegations of misappropriation of client funds before the New Jersey Office of Attorney Ethics.

Actions for damages

In 1998 he represented the World Jewish Congress in proceedings over Jewish assets in Swiss banks (dormant assets) before the US District Court in Brooklyn , New York. The success of the procedure increased its popularity considerably. In 2000 Fagan represented Holocaust victims in their lawsuits in Germany and Austria . When the agreement to establish the Remembrance, Responsibility and Future Foundation was signed in July 2000, Fagan was present and received a fee of 62.5 million dollars as one of the two intermediaries used by Germany. He was also involved in the agreement with the Swiss banks defendant in New York.

Since 2002, his law firm has represented Asian forced laborers and Allied prisoners of war against Japanese companies in a dispute amounting to 50 billion dollars. Many of those affected with the desire to have their suffering in the Pacific War recognized, demonstrated supportively in Seoul . In 2004, as a representative of apartheid victims , he initiated proceedings against the government of South Africa .

In the Kaprun trial, Fagan exclusively represented US victims and relatives of victims of the fire disaster on the Kaprun 2 glacier lift on November 11, 2000. Due to disputes with the Linz regional court , he was banned from working in Austria. On April 10, 2006, he brought an action for damages against the Republic of Austria in the US Federal Court, demanding ten million dollars for each fatality and survivor of the disaster.

Together with the Austrian lawyers Herwig Hasslacher and Gerhard Podovsovnik, Fagan brought a lawsuit in New York in February 2005 following the tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia on December 26, 2004. The lawyers wanted to prove alleged failures of the US Pacific Tsunami Warning Center , the Thai Meteorological Institute, the Accor hotel group and the Kingdom of Thailand . They represent around 60 victims, mainly from Austria and Germany.

In November 2006 he and the Munich attorney Michael Witti filed a lawsuit against the production company 20th Century Fox worth $ 30 million on behalf of two residents of the Romanian village of Glod , a location for the film Borat . However, it was unsuccessful.

Call girl affair

In 2005, as part of an investigation into a Viennese call girl ring , Ed Fagan was accused of having sex with an underage Lithuanian prostitute . In an interview, Fagan confessed to having a relationship with a woman who told him she was 22 years old.

Financial difficulties

According to a report in the Swiss Sunday newspaper , Ed Fagan filed for bankruptcy in Florida on February 13, 2007 in order to forestall impending bankruptcy proceedings in New Jersey.

According to the SonntagsZeitung, Fagan owed a total of 9.4 million dollars to 18 creditors, and the lawyer also owed his Swiss partner Norbert Gschwend three million dollars. Gschwend is said to have confirmed this to the SDA news agency .

Professional ban

On December 12, 2008, Fagan's license to practice in New York was revoked. He had failed to pay a court sentence imposed because of his personal financial interest in the outcome of the restitution process. He also owed Bank Austria almost $ 350,000. Because of a “pattern of previous sanctions for unprofessional behavior” and his “lack of remorse”, the Appeals Chamber decided that Fagan was “unfit for the legal profession”.

On June 24, 2009, Ed Fagan's license was revoked in New Jersey. For more than a decade, the New Jersey Supreme Court's Attorney Ethics Department has been investigating Fagan. After several procedural steps and a final oral hearing, the New Jersey court has now irrevocably revoked Fagan's license and confiscated all of his bank balances in the state . This is reported by the Jewish magazine Tachles , which has the verdict. Fagan also has to pay for the procedural costs. The court believes it has been proven that Fagan defrauded his clients Gizelle Weisshaus and Estelle Sapir by about $ 350,000. After the bank suit was filed, the two women had become symbols of the affair surrounding the dormant accounts.

Fagan was then involved in the forced labor negotiations with Germany and the Holocaust lawsuits against Austrian banks and numerous European insurers. Although he did not play a significant role in the political negotiations, Fagan was able to earn around 6 million dollars in fees from the various settlements. Since 2000, he has not achieved a single success in at least 80 proceedings, but managed to draw the media's attention, for example through his lawsuit against the Borat actor Sacha Baron Cohen . Fagan owes over $ 15 million to former clients and lenders who supported his lawsuits, according to court records.

See also

literature

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ Lawsuit against Borat: Star lawyers represent villagers , Spiegel Online , amg / dpa , November 28, 2006
  2. ↑ Fagan admits contacts to Callgirl-Ring In: ORF from September 14, 2005
  3. ↑ Lawyer Disbarred for Failing to Pay Sanctions, Fees in Holocaust Case (English)
personal data
SURNAME Fagan, Ed
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fagan, Edward
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH October 20, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Harlingen , United States