A federal judge has ruled that AngioDynamics (NSDQ:ANGO) may pursue a racketeering lawsuit against Canada-based Clarion Medical Technologies.
The Clarion case stems from a decade-long dispute pitting Latham, N.Y.-based AngioDynamics against Austrian medical laser company Biolitec AG. AngioDynamics claims that Clarion laundered Biolitec group products to conceal revenues and prevent Biolitec from paying a $75 million judgment that AngioDynamics won against Biolitec in 2014. In March 2019, AngioDynamics settled that lawsuit against Biolitec AG, related company Biomed and (ex-Biolitec CEO Wolfgang) Neuberger, according to the Clarion ruling.
AngioDynamics claims that Clarion “created a convoluted and misleading scheme in which Neuberger and foreign Biolitec entities ship products to Clarion in Canada, and then Clarion fraudulently relabels the Biolitec products and ships them” to business partners in the United States for distribution within this country, the ruling says. “Clarion also allegedly promotes, advertises, offers for sale, and sells Neuberger/Biolitec products, including on its website, over the phone, through email, and via text communications… and (others) have shipped millions of dollars of Neuberger/Biolitec group products to customers through the U.S. and North America.”
Clarion argued that the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts has no jurisdiction over it as a Canadian company that does business in Canada, but Judge Mark Mastroianni ruled last week that the company had sufficient U.S. ties for the case to continue. The judge also wrote that AngioDynamics sufficiently identified shipments to Illinois and Pennsylvania by name and content, if not by time, which enables Clarion to “prepare a meaningful defense.”