Senator Jim Justice and his family business are bringing a big legal gun into a federal court fight with the billionaire owners of the Omni resort chain.
The legal team for the Justices filed a notice of appearance on Friday for H. Rodgin Cohen, a nationally known financial services attorney originally from Charleston. He is currently the senior chairman of the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell.
Cohen, who goes by Rodge, was the focus of a 2023 New York Times article headlined, “The Banking Industry’s Go-to Crisis Adviser.”
“Mr. Cohen is a sought-after adviser in banking crises,” the Times wrote, “and he has worked on almost every one in the last several decades.”
An earlier New York Times profile, from 2009, called Cohen “The Trauma Surgeon of Wall Street” to describe the frantic pace of his guidance in financial law during that era’s Great Recession.
Cohen will be joining a legal team that includes Charleston attorney Steve Ruby, the local counsel who is a regular Justice wrangler.
Also entered for admission into the case on Friday were Amanda Flug Davidoff, Oliver W. Engebretson-Schooley and Robert L. Jones IV, all of Sullivan & Cromwell where Cohen works.
The Justice case presents a unique, high stakes puzzle.
The Justice family and many of their business holdings are being sued in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia by an affiliate of TRT Holdings, parent company of Omni Hotels & Resorts.
TRT Holdings is owned by Texas billionaire Robert Rowling, whose son Blake serves as the company’s president. Omni operates more than 50 luxury properties.
TRT’s newly formed White Sulphur Springs Holdings has moved for receivership of the historic Greenbrier Hotel, owned by the Justice family, essentially asking the federal court to appoint a third-party caretaker.
Justice bought the historic Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs out of bankruptcy in 2009.
Carter Bank & Trust of Martinsville, Va., was the major lender, and financial conflict between the bank and the Justice family over and over during the past decade. Carter regularly reported that the loans were considered “nonaccrual status,” drawing no interest payments.
TRT’s newly formed subsidiary White Sulphur Springs Holdings bought the Greenbrier debt from Carter Bank late last month for nearly $300 million.
Last Friday, lawyers for White Sulphur Springs Holdings moved to have a federal judge place the Greenbrier into receivership, essentially appointing a third-party caretaker.
Lawyers for White Sulphur Springs Holdings are accusing the Justice ownership group of defaulting on multiple agreements and diverting resort revenue to other businesses while failing to pay millions in taxes.
If the judge approves, the receiver would be authorized to exclude the Justice family and their agents from possessing or operating the resort.
“The track record of these Defendants more than justifies this request,” wrote lawyers for White Sulphur Springs Holdings in the initial federal court filing.
At the center of the TRT claim is a forbearance agreement signed by the Justice family. That represents a contract between a lender and a borrower in default, where the lender temporarily pauses or reduces payments and delays legal action like foreclosure or repossession to allow the borrower to resolve financial hardship.
Signing such an agreement allows a grace period but essentially hands the keys to the creditor by admitting full liability and waiving almost all rights to contest a future judgment. It’s a high-risk legal document.
The Justice family has filed counterclaims arguing that the TRT’s purchase of the debt and supporting legal documents should be disallowed, alleging that the buyer used insider information to gain a premature and unfair advantage.
“The case before this Court, meanwhile, is nothing more than a sham brought by a competing hotel operator trying to snatch away ownership of The Greenbrier,” wrote an attorney for the Justice family ownership group.
Cohen and his colleagues now will be enlisted to carry that argument through.