Soros Dodges Suit Over $54.8 Million Judgment

MANHATTAN (CN) - A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit seeking the collection of $54.8 million judgment won by cargo airline TradeWinds against billionaire George Soros and Indian corporate titan Purnendu Chatterjee.

In 2010, backers of the North Carolina-based TradeWinds sued Soros and Chatterjee in a lawsuit claiming the men participated in" an elaborate shell game" to defraud them by disguising their ownership of the company C-S Aviation through a complex, multi-tiered corporate structure.

TradeWinds and its parent company Coreolis had obtained the multimillion dollar judgment against C-S Aviation, and tried to collect the judgment by piercing the "corporate veil" of Soros and Chatterjee.

Although Soros and Chatterlee called the allegations "implausible and speculative" from the start, U.S. District Judge John Keenan allowed the case to proceed to discovery two years ago.

On Tuesday, the judge found Tradewinds lacked evidence to prove the two men formed a "single economic entity," in a 32-page opinion.

"Considering all the evidence presented by plaintiffs as to the 'single economic entity' prong of the veil-piercing analysis, the court concludes that a rational trier of fact could not return a verdict in plaintiffs' favor because they have failed to show that Soros and Chatterjee personally dominated C-S Aviation," the opinion states.

The parties' attorneys did not immediately responded to requests for comment left after business hours.

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