Johansson v. Grip, Inc. - Arbitration Award Won and Confirmed as Judgment: $1,144,000
CK&C represents Bay Area real estate company in arbitration, defeating unfounded claims of embezzling employee and winning a $1.14M judgment in counter-suit.
Grip, Inc. (a pseudonym) is a family-run business. It owns and manages large multi-unit properties in the Bay Area.
Grip’s CEO regularly employed trusted members of his family in executive positions. He considered Erik Alfred Johansson (also a pseudonym) to be one of them and in 2017 offered Mr. Johansson an opportunity to manage the company as its CFO. But by the time Mr. Johansson started working for Grip, the CEO had started showing signs of age-related physical and mental degradation that led to brain surgery in late 2022.
Between 2017 and 2022, Mr. Johansson repaid the CEO’s trust – and took advantage of his declining faculties – by stealing from Grip and its subsidiaries. He did this by making personal charges on the companies’ credit cards, and by using the companies’ bank accounts to deliver money to his family and others.
In mid-2022, as the CEO’s health reached a crisis point, one of his daughters – a director of the corporation – began to ask Mr. Johansson for access to Grip’s books so she could become more closely involved in the business. Mr. Johansson tried to cover his tracks. For months, he rebuffed her requests for Grip’s financial information with a panoply of excuses. But by December 2022, she was able to obtain some of Grip’s books, which immediately alerted her to Mr. Johansson’s thefts.
In January 2023, Grip retained CK&C and terminated Mr. Johansson. Mr. Johansson promptly filed an action against Grip claiming breach of a written employment agreement that he alleged guaranteed his employment for years to come and demanded millions of dollars. Grip counter-claimed, alleging that Mr. Johansson had defrauded the company by misusing its credit cards and bank accounts.
Mr. Commins and Mr. Chou arbitrated the case for five days before AAA in February 2024, and in May 2024 an award was issued rejecting all of Mr. Johansson’s claims; Grip was awarded $1.125 million. Grip then petitioned the Superior Court to confirm the award, and in August 2024 Grip obtained a judgment against Mr. Johansson for $1.144 million.