Mitchell D. Haddad, a Member of the Sills Cummis & Gross Litigation Department, is Chair of New York Real Estate Litigation. He focuses on complex real estate and commercial litigation, creditors’ rights, workouts and corporate litigation. He has first chaired numerous trials, argued appeals and participated in arbitrations and mediations on a wide variety of matters. He works with clients and the Firm’s Real Estate Department on transactions in order to resolve issues and disputes prior to and as a means to resolve potential litigation.
Mr. Haddad represents domestic and international companies, lenders, borrowers, real estate owners and developers, and commercial landlords and tenants. He prosecutes, defends and advises on complex commercial mortgage and UCC foreclosure actions, valuation proceedings, vendor-purchaser litigation, complex commercial landlord-tenant matters, Fair Housing Act and housing discrimination matters, not-for-profit and religious corporation transaction approval proceedings, zoning, title and land use issues, mechanic’s lien litigation, and general commercial torts, partnership, joint venture and corporate litigation and matters involving real estate entities.
Since joining Sills Cummis & Gross in 2006, Mr. Haddad’s major real estate related matters included defending an action seeking specific performance of a long-term lease for the development and operation of a midtown Manhattan hotel or, alternatively, $100 million in damages. He obtained and collected upon a $25 million deficiency judgment following a 12-day hearing. He obtained a $95 million judgment and a $45 million judgment in favor of two separate lenders, and defended a developer in an action to foreclose upon a $17 million second mortgage encumbering an entire city block in Brooklyn, New York. Mr. Haddad was trial counsel and obtained a preliminary injunction in the Eastern District of the United States District Court enforcing a non-compete and non-disclosure agreement in connection with a failed corporate merger, which was upheld on appeal by the Second Circuit. Mr. Haddad obtained summary judgment dismissing claims seeking $25 million in damages for breach of contract and fraud arising out of an oral joint venture agreement to develop real property, and successfully defended the Eastern Section of the United States Tennis Association in multiple state court proceedings to overturn an election of officers and directors.
Prior to joining Sills Cummis & Gross, Mr. Haddad spent thirteen years at Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP, where, among other major matters, he successfully led teams of attorneys foreclosing upon a portfolio of commercial mortgages on behalf of a leading international lender, and repossessing a jumbo jet in Miami, Florida leased by an international airline. He coordinated and supervised outside counsel in successfully liquidating more than twenty recycling facilities in nine states pursuant to an assignment for the benefit of creditors on behalf of a secured creditor. He represented a major international corporation in arbitration to determine the fair annual market rental value for the last five years of a multi-floor lease term, in which the arbitrator determined that the value was $20 million less than the landlord had sought. Mr. Haddad succeeded at both the trial and appellate levels in a case in which the plaintiff sought – and was denied – various easements to a private park and a private street in lower Manhattan. He successfully led a team that obtained a judgment in excess of $24 million arising out of a development in Boston, MA, and represented a consortium of institutional lenders in prosecuting the foreclosure of membership interests in a limited liability company that owned and operated a power generating facility in Connecticut.