Business Torts

Duties between parties in business relationships are not limited to those created by contracts. Both statutes and the common law may impose a number of duties on those involved in business relationships, such as the duty to exercise reasonable care, fiduciary duties, duties to protect trade secrets and other confidential information, duties not to defraud or misrepresent, and duties not to engage in unfair competition.

The significant business torts cases in which the firm has been involved include:

• Representing in criminal and civil cases businesses and individuals accused of having paid bribes to the Mayor of a major Connecticut city in return for favorable consideration with respect to public contracts.
   
• Representing a supermarket chain accused in a class action of improperly collecting sales tax on meals not subject to sales tax.
   
• Representing in criminal and civil cases a physician accused of billing insureds for services not provided.
   
• Representing the former President of an iron works company in action alleging a conspiracy to defraud a purchaser of a work by Alexander Calder that was constructed by the company.
   
• Representing a stock brokerage firm in the defense of an action to recover funds allegedly stolen from a brokerage account by means of forged checks.
   
• Representing accountant in defense of action alleging accounting negligence and fraud in connection with the sale of a business.
   

Among the clients we have represented are: Big Y Foods, Inc. (Springfield, MA); AT&T Corp., (Warren, NJ), ChoicePoint, Inc. (Alpharetta, GA), New England Energy Management, Inc. (New Milford, CT), Matsushita Electric Corporation of America (Secaucus, NJ), The Council for Tobacco Research, U.S.A. Inc. (New York, NY). Among the reported decisions in business tort cases in which the firm has been involved are: Wilson v. Midway Games, Inc., 198 F. Supp. 2d 167, 106 ALR 5^th 759 (D. Conn. 2002); Connecticut Pipe Trades Health Fund v. Philip Morris, Inc., 153 F. Supp. 2d 101 (D. Conn. 2001); Elm City Cheese Company v. Federico, 251 Conn. 59 (1999); and Plastic and Metal Fabricators, Inc. v. Roy, 163 Conn. 257, 303 A.2d 725 (1972).