British attorney Steven Goodman has been accused of “actively evading service” of a complaint against him in New York for alleged extortion regarding the fraudulent Cayman Islands-domiciled Axiom Legal Financing Fund.

Even though the complaint was filed at federal court in Manhattan more than four months ago by a U. S. affiliate of the Cayman-based DMS hedge fund services group, it has still not been served on Goodman.

In a court filing last Thursday [9], DMS Management (USA) Inc. stated it had attempted to serve Goodman more than 30 times in the U. S., Australia and Singapore – all without success.

“By way of brief background, DMS USA commenced the instant declaratory judgment action against Mr. Goodman in response to a series of threats made by his Chicago-based attorney, Howard W. Foster, Esq., to assert RICO claims on behalf of Mr. Goodman against DMS USA and others within the DMS-affiliated companies arising out of Mr. Goodman’s employment with Tangerine Investment Management, Inc.,” stated DMS.

“Upon commencement of this action, we asked Mr. Foster whether he would accept service on behalf of his client, Mr. Goodman, who is a resident of Australia and Singapore and maintains his business in Singapore. Mr. Foster declined on the basis that he was not authorized to accept service.

“As a result of Mr. Foster’s refusal to accept service on behalf of Mr. Goodman, we have undertaken to effect service upon Mr. Goodman both in Australia pursuant to the Hague Convention (of which Australia is a signatory) and in Singapore pursuant to the Rules of Court of the Republic of Singapore, which requires personal service. On August 8, 2014, we received notification from the Australian Central Authority that they were unable to serve Mr. Goodman as he is no longer at his residence in Australia and is living in Singapore indefinitely. To date, we have attempted unsuccessfully to serve Mr. Goodman in Singapore on 33 different occasions (9 times at his residential address and 24 times at his registered office), with our most recent attempt coming on October 8, 2014.

“Notably, on September 19, 2014, the process server observed Mr. Goodman in his office, yet was told by his receptionist that Mr. Goodman was traveling. Thus, Mr. Goodman appears to be actively evading service.”

In its complaint against Goodman filed on June 5, 2014, DMS USA is seeking a declaratory judgment that it is not liable to Goodman for any damages regarding alleged misconduct by Tangerine Investment Management, Inc. and Axiom Legal Financing Fund, both of which were controlled by British fraudster Timothy Schools and swindled investors out of approximately £100 million before collapsing two years ago after being exposed by OffshoreAlert.

DMS Group employees Dawn Cummings and Ronan Guilfoyle, both of whom reside in Cayman, served as directors of TIM and Axiom, respectively, while Goodman was “Group Chief Executive Officer and Director” of TIM, according to DMS. “DMS USA brings this action to halt an eight month barrage of extortionate threats by Steven J. Goodman – the failed former Group Chief Executive Officer and Director of Tangerine Investment Management, Inc., who served in such capacities at a contractual annual salary of $300,000 throughout his five month employment at the evanescent and non-operational Tangerine – to disparage and damage the businesses of DMS USA and its affiliates by asserting Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act claims against DMS USA, seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, based upon allegations so far removed from reality that they might find appropriate venue only in the Court of the King and Queen of Hearts.

“Despite being contractually responsible, pursuant to the terms of his service (i.e., employment) agreement, for Tangerine’s business until his voluntary resignation from the company under a cloud, Mr. Goodman is now attempting to shift blame to DMS USA and others within the DMS-affiliated companies for his egregious mismanagement of Tangerine’s affairs, and for the alleged fraudulent conduct of Tangerine’s sole shareholder, and Mr. Goodman’s former direct supervisor, Timothy Schools, who one of Tangerine’s liquidators described as the “driving force behind” Tangerine.

“Indeed, Goodman’s threatened RICO claims against DMS USA and others are not related to any alleged conduct by DMS USA, but instead are based upon the alleged misconduct of two Cayman Islands companies, Tangerine and Axiom Legal Financing Fund, in connection with an alleged breach of the service (i.e., employment) agreement between Mr. Goodman and his former employer, Tangerine.

“In a wholly transparent effort to extort a settlement from sources he believes to have deeper pockets, Mr. Goodman is thus turning a routine employment dispute with Tangerine for approximately $3,700 in unpaid wages and benefits that allegedly accrued prior to his voluntary resignation, into a RICO claim against DMS USA, allegedly for hundreds of millions of dollars. And since asserting claims in any way analogous to his threatened RICO claims in the courts of the Cayman Islands would subject Mr. Goodman to adverse cost awards for every penny spent by OMS USA or its affiliates in securing their dismissal, Mr. Goodman threatens to seek to bootstrap a similarity in names among DMS USA and its offshore affiliates into RICO claims against this New York company with no ties to Tangerine or Axiom, thereby gaining access to the Courts of the Southern District, where he reasonably perceives less risk of being held accountable for the costs that will be run up by DMS USA in defending his spurious claims.

“Specifically, DMS USA played no role in the negotiation, execution or alleged breach of Mr. Goodman’s service agreement and, in fact, has never provided any type of service whatsoever to Mr. Goodman or his controlled entities. Moreover, DMS USA was not even incorporated until after Mr. Schools had recruited Mr. Goodman and he had entered into the service agreement at issue. As such, Mr. Goodman has failed to put forth any factual or legal basis upon which DMS USA could be held liable under RICO, or any other cognizable theory of state, federal or common law.

“Rather than accepting the consequences of his own multiple failures during his short time at Tangerine, as well as the failures and alleged fraudulent conduct of his former superior Mr. Schools, Mr. Goodman is now seeking retribution and also attempting to profit from this wrongdoing and alleged fraud by shifting the blame to one of Tangerine’s former independent directors, Dawn Cummings, an executive director of DMS Offshore, who refused to acquiesce or be cowed by threats from Schools, David Rae, the disgraced former Chief Operating Officer of Tangerine, and their cohorts, and instead performed her role as an independent director appropriately by acting courageously and decisively in helping to promptly put an end to Mr. Schools’ misfeasance and alleged malfeasance. Indeed, Ms. Cummings – as the independent director that Mr. Goodman seeks to target through his misdirected claims against DMS USA – at all times comprised a minority of the board of directors of Tangerine. But further evidencing Mr. Goodman’s wanton pursuit of deep pockets above all else, Ms. Cummings, and not Schools, Rae or any of their cohorts that also served as directors, appears to be the sole target of Mr. Goodman’s disingenuous claims. Adding insult to injury, in fact, Mr. Goodman and one of Mr. Schools’ key “co-conspirators,” Mr. Rae, are actively cooperating in this shakedown. As part of his alleged extortion attempt, Goodman obtained a default judgment for £25.8 million against Tangerine at the High Court in London on March 28, 2013, stated DMS.

Goodman is currently CEO of Singapore-domiciled Teras Group Pte Ltd., which claims on its web-site at www.terasgroup.com to be “a private consulting group specialising in litigation funding for legal claims and other related services”. He also serves as an “independent director” of Chailease Holding Corp. and an Adjunct Professor of Bond University, in Australia.

See also related story:

Briton Steven Goodman ‘evades service’ of lawsuit connected to Axiom Legal Financing Fund

From OffshoreAlert

British attorney and Singapore resident Steven Goodman has been accused of “actively evading service” of a complaint against him in New York for alleged extortion of the Cayman Islands-based DMS Group regarding the fraudulent Axiom Legal Financing Fund.

For more: http://www.offshorealert.com/GetArticle.aspx?id=51074

IMAGE: www.investoffshore.com

See also iNews related story with other related links published August 5 2014 “British attorney Tim Schools struck off for ‘serious misconduct’” at: http://www.ieyenews.com/wordpress/cayman-axiom-fund-fraud-lawyer-struck-off-as-solicitor-in-uk/