The parties have been engaged in extensive settlement negotiations and have reached a non-binding agreement in principle to settle this matter.

The parties are continuing to negotiate, finalize all relevant terms, and document the agreement appropriately.

On September 17, 2019, the parties informed the Court that they had reached a non-binding agreement in principle to settle this matter

Since that date, the parties have worked diligently on reaching an agreement on all terms. In that effort, the parties’ counsel have met three times in person to go over the details of the final agreement and have made significant progress on reaching the form of what will become the final binding agreement. Due to the complexity of the settlement and associated documents, however, a bit more time is needed to finalize and memorialize the agreement.

Reaching a final binding settlement agreement is in the best interests of both parties, and an additional 30-day extension of all case deadlines (including the trial setting) will enable both parties to devote their full efforts to that goal.

Plaintiffs, at the time, believed to have been good faith settlement discussions. These discussions began at Craig’s request and due to the fact that Craig represented he had the means to finance a settlement.

On September 11, the parties reached a non-binding settlement in principle and then turned to drafting binding settlement papers. To facilitate these discussions, there were at least four in person meetings and numerous telephonic conferences. Plaintiffs hired both U.S. tax counsel and foreign counsel and incurred the cost of their participation in the settlement process. In reliance on these efforts and what seemed to be steady progress toward global resolution, Plaintiffs stopped active litigation, focused on settlement, and joined both of Craig’s motions to extend the case deadlines by 30 days

On October 30, without any advance notice, Plaintiffs were informed Craig could no longer finance the settlement and was “breaking” the non-binding settlement agreement.

He [Faketoshi] asked the parties to pause the litigation process and concentrate on amicably resolving this dispute, only to pull his consent with no advance notice, without good cause,