Professional and Community Involvement:

• Member, Orange County Bar Association
• Member, Westchester County Bar Association
• Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Rockland County (Past President)

Education:

• J.D., University of Southern California Law School, 1984
• B.S., New York University (School of Business and Public Administration). 1981

Admitted to Practice:

• New York
• U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
• U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York
• U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York
• U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second District
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

Areas of Law:

Commercial Litigation

Recent Cases
Commercial Instruments – Coudert v. Richard N. Hokin, Nazi Looted Art. Recovery of Nazi Looted Painting, “Seated Man with a Cane,” Modigliani (1919). 

• Commercial Instruments – Coudert v. Richard N. Hokin, U.S.D.C., S.D.N.Y., 1:12-
  cv-00110-ALC 2018 WL 2561073 (4/30/18). Decision granting client’s claim for
  recovery of $4,770,461.69 on promissory notes and rejecting defense that the notes
  were not intended to be enforced and were part of a tax avoidance scheme claimed by
  client’s ex-spouse.
• Corporate Dissolution – Phil most recently obtained a “zero” valuation and denial of
  dissolution on behalf of a client electing to purchase the disgruntled shareholder’s
  interest in the corporation Paul Derderian v. NLNY, Inc., Index#: 607662/2015,
  NYSCEF, Docket No.: 93, decision dated March 28, 2018.
• Matter of Stettiner –  148 A.D.3d 184, lv. App. Den 30 N.Y. 3d 907, (2017). Phillip and the firm successfully opposed the possessor of a Nazi looted artwork’s effort to revoke ancillary letters of administration issued in aid of the Estate of the Nazi Aryanization victim, Oscar Stettiner, by New York County Surrogate, Nora S. Anderson. The Appellate Division, First Department, also held that the possessor was subject to jurisdiction of the New York Courts due to its attempted sale of the looted artwork at Sotheby’s New York showroom in 2008. The Appellate Division also held that property in New York included a “choose in action,” SCPA §103(44) and §2103(2), and that SCPA §206(1) did not require the physical presence of the painting in New York. The painting was secreted out of New York and hidden in a Swiss freeport warehouse to avoid recovery by the victim of Nazi Aryanization.
• Maestracci v. Helly Nahmad Gallery, Inc., – 155 A.D.3d 401 (2017).  Phillip and the firm successfully argued that the evidence submitted as the heirship of plaintiff, Philippe Maestracci, the sole survivor of a Nazi Aryanization victim, had standing to bring a claim for replevin of the looted painting, “Seated Man with a Cane,” Modigliani (1919) against the Helly Nahmad Gallery and members of the Nahmad family alleged to have used a Panamanian shell company, IAC, as an alter ego to shield their dealings in Nazi loot from public scrutiny.  The Court also held that the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act, signed by President Obama in December 2016, applied to the case and that the action was timely brought.
• Maestracci v. Helly Nahmad Gallery, Inc., – Decision denying motion to dismiss, (Bransten), N.Y. Cty. Index#: 650646/2014, NYSCEF Docket No.: 1810,  www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/almID/1528357713NY650546201  June 11, 2018.  Defendants’ desperate final attempt to avoid the Nazi Aryanization victim’s claims in a scorched earth motion based on, inter alia, personal and subject matter jurisdiction, statute of limitations, standing, failure to state a claim, champerty, etc., etc., denied in its entirely.  Defendants are left only with denial of the factual circumstances surrounding the Nazi Aryanization of Jewish property, the victim’s flight from occupied Paris without a receipt for his property, denial of a past liberation French Court’s order that the Modigliani portrait of a man be restituted to Stettiner and claims of a lack of diligence by the victim’s family, despite the post war hiding of the painting and its post war and current possessor for 70 years.Decision denying motion to dismiss, (Bransten), N.Y. Cty. Index#: 650646/2014, NYSCEF Docket No.: 1810,  www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/almID/1528357713NY650546201  June 11, 2018.  Defendants’ desperate final attempt to avoid the Nazi Aryanization victim’s claims in a scorched earth motion based on, inter alia, personal and subject matter jurisdiction, statute of limitations, standing, failure to state a claim, champerty, etc., etc., denied in its entirely.  Defendants are left only with denial of the factual circumstances surrounding the Nazi Aryanization of Jewish property, the victim’s flight from occupied Paris without a receipt for his property, denial of a past liberation French Court’s order that the Modigliani portrait of a man be restituted to Stettiner and claims of a lack of diligence by the victim’s family, despite the post war hiding of the painting and its post war and current possessor for 70 years.
• George W. Gowen v. Helly Nahmad Gallery, Inc. – Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Eileen Bransten, J.), entered on or about May 9, 2018, which, insofar as appealed from as limited by the briefs, denied defendants’ motion to dismiss on grounds of forum non conveniens, unanimously affirmed, with costs, and so much of an order, same court and Justice, entered on or about May 9, 2018, as denied defendants’ motion to vacate the decision of the special master, unanimously affirmed, with  costs. For more info on this case, CLICK HERE