Schiavone Owners in Legal Battle Over Firm's Sale

摘要

Tensions, apparently simmering for years between the aging, now former principals of heavy-contracting firm Schiavone Construction Co. over the company's future and the executives' own financial stakes have now boiled over publicly in a federal civil lawsuit by one against the other. Company founder, chairman and CEO Ronald A. Schiavone, 82, charges his ex-partner and firm President Raymond J. Donovan, 78, with fraud and breach of his fiduciary duties linked to the Secaucus, N.J.-based contractor's December 2007 sale to Spanish construction firm Dragados S.A. for $150 million. Schiavone and Donovan, who were sole owners, left the company after the sale. Schiavone's March 6 suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Newark, N.J., is a rare display of boardroom candor for a firm not known for its public face, despite its reputed size and its stature in public-works construction in the New York area and nationally. Revenue has not been disclosed by the firm but sources estimate it is at least $300 million. In a 29-page lawsuit, Schiavone, who founded his firm in 1956, contends Donovan, who became its co-owner in 1989, engineered a secret effort to sell the company to Dragados without the CEO's consent and to devalue its shares for his own apparent financial gain. Schiavone refers to Donovan's alleged "false and misleading statements" and "oppressive conduct" in his suit.