One Law Firm in San Antonio Gets a Second Chance to Shake Off Claims of Shadiness in a $250 Million
Alright, y’all. We know there are a lot of stereotypes about Texans as well as students and graduates of Texas A&M—or Aggies, as they’re commonly known—that aren’t the most flattering as far as brain power and intelligence. But you don’t have to be one of the Aggies or an attorney at the law firm in San Antonio that’s implicated in the real estate development case described in this brief from Courthouse News to be scratching your head. It’s just plain darn confusing. But since it’s news, and it’s about San Antonio, and since Aggies are always good for a laugh, we’ll do our best to lay it out straight “fer ya.”
About ten years ago (or in 2006, to be exact), a Nevada-based company began buying land near San Antonio “in anticipation of Texas A&M University building a branch campus nearby.” We’ll call the Nevada-based company “Triple L Management. (That’s their name). So Triple L bought up all this property and named a second company registered as a Texas Partnership, the Verano Land Group, as owner on the titles. Now maybe Verano Land Group smelled trouble, or maybe they were in good with that law firm in San Antonio, but they retained that firm just in case things got ugly, as they tend to do in the Wild West.
The rumors that were flying around about that law firm in San Antonio weren’t all that pretty, either. Verano “allegedly hired the law in part because of the connections Jane Macon, one of its partners, has in San Antonio as its former city attorney.” So you’ve got Triple L propping up Verano, who is puppeteering a former city mayor on land that might be developed by Aggies all in the mix now. This is where it gets juicy.
The Aggies get together with the San Antonio big dogs (Texan slang for “city officials”) “to secure an agreement in which Verano would donate to the university some of its property it bought in exchange for $250 million in public funding from San Antonio to develop the property.” But that’s not all. All of a sudden, Triple L wanted to up and create a separate entity, VTLM Texas, to deal with them Aggies and San Antonio big dogs. You know, to “limit Nevada investors’ potential income tax liabilities,” or so Triple L claimed.
But those savvy Nevada investors didn’t buy it, and thought Triple L was dang near double crossing them, so they ousted VTLM and the law firm in San Antonio—or at least Macon, thinking she’d gotten a little too free with their money.
These investors were tired of those Aggies and tired of those Texans messing with their gold. Ahem, funds. They “registered Verano as a Nevada partnership and filed a lawsuit in Clark County District Court” accusing them of “breach of fiduciary duty and engaging in ‘self-dealing.’” Verano (now that Nevada partnership), says Triple L created VTLM “to ‘usurp the city of San Antonio’s funds’.” But now the Supreme Court in Nevada says that Macon and that ole San Antonio law firm deserve a fighting chance to dismiss Verano’s claims.
The showdown will take place at high noon on main street—er, we mean: in a Nevada courtroom.