| Rushaid v Pictet & Cie |
| 2015 NY Slip Op 03413 [127 AD3d 610] |
| April 23, 2015 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
[*1]
| Rasheed Al Rushaid et al., Appellants, v Pictet& Cie et al., Respondents. |
Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP, New York (Gary P. Naftalis of counsel),for appellants.
Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, New York (Maeve L. O'Connor of counsel), forrespondents.
Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Saliann Scarpulla, J.), entered August 27,2014, which granted defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint for lack of personaljurisdiction, unanimously affirmed, without costs.
Plaintiffs allege that defendants, a private Swiss bank and its officers and generalpartners, provided assistance to plaintiffs' former employees by creating a corporateentity and bank accounts to accept money that the former employees were taking askickbacks and bribes in breach of their fiduciary duties to plaintiffs. Defendants effectedthe wire transfers that moved the alleged kickbacks and bribes into the accounts they hadestablished. The bank does not maintain an office or branch in New York. Relying on Licci v Lebanese Can. Bank,SAL (20 NY3d 327 [2012]), plaintiffs argue that New York courts may exercisejurisdiction over defendants pursuant to CPLR 302 (a) (1), based on defendants' use ofcorrespondent accounts in New York to effectuate the wire transfers.
Unlike the Lebanese Canadian Bank (LCB), however, which was alleged to have"deliberately used a New York account again and again to effect its support" of afoundation through which money was funneled to a terrorist organization (id. at340), defendants are alleged to have been "directed" by plaintiffs' former employees "towire the bribe/kickback money to Citibank NA, New York, in favour of 'Pictet &Co. Bankers Geneva,' for the credit of" an account they controlled. Thus, unlike LCB,defendants merely carried out their clients' instructions and have not been shown to have"purposefully availed [themselves] of the privilege of conducting activities in New York"(id. at 336).
Nor have plaintiffs shown that facts essential to establishing jurisdiction may existbut [*2]cannot yet be stated; thus, dismissal withoutjurisdictional discovery is appropriate (see Copp v Ramirez, 62 AD3d 23, 31-32 [1st Dept 2009],lv denied 12 NY3d 711 [2009]). Concur—Sweeny, J.P., Andrias,Manzanet-Daniels and Clark, JJ. [Prior Case History: 2014 NY Slip Op32286(U).]