Free With Registration: When Non-Clients Sue Professionals for Negligence
Karen Y. Bitar and Adam D. Cole, shareholders in Greenberg Traurig, review a recent First Department decision where the closely-divided panel determined that an engineering company that provided faulty mechanical specifications to its client, a condominium sponsor, to be incorporated into an offering plan, owed no duty to third parties who relied on the information in purchasing condominiums. The case has been appealed to the Court of Appeals, and may ultimately prove influential in a number of existing lawsuits against accountants and other professionals in which private feeder and hedge fund investors allege they were induced to purchase or hold investments relying on negligent audits and other misrepresentations.
