Hagens Berman: Florida Lawsuit Accuses CBL & Associates of “Criminal Enterprise” and Illegal Tenant Charges
25 March 2016 - 2:12AM
Business Wire
Lawsuit states CBL orchestrated a “fraudulent scheme,”
overcharging small business tenants by up to 100 percent for
electricity in its shopping malls
A small business in Florida has filed a class-action lawsuit
against CBL & Associates alleging that CBL has overcharged
thousands of its mall tenants for years through a calculated
“criminal enterprise” of inflated electricity charges, charging
tenants up to 100 percent more than cost of electricity the tenants
actually used, according to consumer-rights law firms, Hagens
Berman, Buckner + Miles and Yormak Employment & Disability
Law.
According to the lawsuit, CBL promised its small business
tenants that their electricity charges would not exceed what CBL
was charged by local public utilities for the electricity the
tenants actually used, but CBL breached its own lease agreements –
and applicable state law – by inflating tenant electric bills up to
twice the amount of tenants would have been charged had they
purchased electricity directly from the utility company.
The 32-page complaint filed Mar. 16, 2016 in the U.S. District
Court for the Middle District of Florida accuses CBL, one of the
nation’s largest mall owner and operators, of engaging in
racketeering and conspiracy in violation of Racketeer Influence and
Corrupt Organization Act (RICO), breach of contract and violation
of Florida’s Civil Remedies for Criminal Practices Act, among other
counts.
“For years, CBL has been serving as an illegal middleman,
breaching its own lease agreements with small businesses, and
inflating electricity bills up to twice what its tenants should
have been paying. CBL rigged the system and took advantage of its
tenants,” said Steve Berman, managing partner of Hagens Berman.
“CBL has been caught red-handed, and we intend to make it stop. We
want to see every penny from these years of inflated charges
returned to tenants.”
The suit seeks relief for all individuals and entities that
leased mall space from CBL and paid it monthly energy charges. If
you believe you have been affected, contact Hagens Berman to find
out your rights.
The suit states that CBL went as far as to attempt to cover up
illegal upcharges by inserting a clause into its lease agreements
requiring tenants to waive their right to audit CBL’s electric
bills. In exchange, CBL agreed that it would not mark up their
electricity charges, according to the complaint.
“CBL blatantly lied to its tenants,” Berman said. “Not only did
it engage in illegal markups for the cost of electricity in its
shopping malls, but it engaged in the very activity it promised it
would not do in its own lease agreements.”
“What we have here is a classic tale of David and Goliath,” Seth
Miles of Buckner + Miles added. “CBL knew that as a bigger, more
powerful entity, it would be able to take full advantage of
thousands of small businesses, and it succeeded for years.”
"CBL lined its own pockets, all at the expense of its own small
business tenants, many of which struggled to stay open or were
forced to close in the wake of the Great Recession," noted Benjamin
Yormak of Yormak Employment & Disability Law.
The lawsuit states that “CBL’s scheme was fully unmasked when
CBL’s Gulf Coast Town Center mall (GCTC) went into foreclosure and
was taken over by CBL’s lender. As a result, a third-party
management company was brought in to manage the mall… It became
immediately apparent that CBL had been significantly overcharging
its GCTC tenants for electricity.”
Find out more about the class-action lawsuit against CBL on
behalf of small business tenants in its shopping malls.
About Hagens Berman
Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP is a consumer-rights
class-action law firm with offices in 10 cities. The firm has been
named to the National Law Journal’s Plaintiffs’ Hot List eight
times. More about the law firm and its successes can be found at
www.hbsslaw.com. Follow the firm for updates and news at
@ClassActionLaw.
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version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160324005816/en/
Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLPAshley Klann,
206-268-9363ashleyk@hbsslaw.com
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