Donald Trump has “narrowly avoided the imposition” of sanctions by a New York state judge who on Monday dismissed the real estate mogul’s suit against the buyers of the southern portion of a 77-acre development on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The suit stemmed from a partnership Trump entered into with Hong Kong investors Henry Cheng and Vincent Lo to develop the former Penn Central railyards on the Hudson River waterfront. In 2006, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Richard B. Lowe threw out most of a prior action brought by Trump in 2005 against Cheng and Lo, whom Trump accused of underselling the land for $1.76 billion to the Carlyle Group L.P. and Extell Development Company.
Trump then went after Carlyle and Extell, who he claimed aided and abetted “fiduciary fraud” when they allegedly made a secret $17.5 million payment to Fineview Resources Limited, an off-shore company “believed to be dominated and controlled” by Cheng and Lo. The payment was “deliberately concealed” from Trump, the complaint alleged.
