Benjamin Zhu

Counsel, New York

Benjamin Zhu

Counsel, New York

+1 212 324 3527
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Benjamin Zhu is a counsel in Cohen & Gresser’s New York office. He focuses his practice on litigation and white collar defense matters. Ben has been named a Rising Star by New York’s Super Lawyers for general litigation. He has also been recognized by the Best Lawyers in America: Ones to Watch guide in its white collar criminal defense category.

Ben previously worked as a litigation associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell.

Ben is a magna cum laude graduate of the New York University School of Law, where he received the Order of the Coif and was a Notes Editor of the Law Review. He received his B.A., magna cum laude, from Northwestern University.

Ben is conversational in Mandarin Chinese.

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Benjamin Zhu is a counsel in Cohen & Gresser’s New York office. He focuses his practice on litigation and white collar defense matters. Ben…

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Education

New York University School of Law (J.D., magna cum laude, 2014); Northwestern University (B.A., magna cum laude, 2011)

Bar Admissions

New York State; U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York; U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit

Cohen & Gresser is pleased to announce that 25 of the firm’s lawyers are included on the 2024 New York Metro Super Lawyers list and 13 lawyers are included on the 2024 New York Metro Rising Stars list across a range of practice areas.

Super Lawyers once again named C&G co­-founder Mark S. Cohen and partner Jonathan S. Abernethy to the Super Lawyers list of the Top 100 lawyers in the New York metropolitan area.

Super Lawyers and Rising Stars are annual lists of outstanding lawyers who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. Only 5 percent of the lawyers in each state are selected as Super Lawyers, and only 2.5 percent are selected as Rising Stars.

The C&G lawyers recognized on the New York Metro Super Lawyers list are:

The C&G lawyers recognized on the New York Metro Rising Stars list are:

   
Related Attorneys:
Jonathan S Abernethy, Kwaku Andoh, Luke Appling, Elizabeth F Bernhardt, Karen H Bromberg, Jason Brown, Joanna K Chan, Mark S Cohen, S Gale Dick, Christian R Everdell, Robert J Gavigan, Lawrence T Gresser, Oliver Haker, Johannes Jonas, Nicholas J Kaiser, David F Lisner, Ellen Paltiel, Douglas J Pepe, Matthew V Povolny, Bonnie J Roe, Stephen M Sinaiko, Mark Spatz, Daniel H Tabak, Scott D Thomson, Alexandra Wald, Sharon L Barbour, Randall W Bryer, Shannon Aimée Daugherty, Drew S Dean, Christine M Jordan, William E Kalema, Phoebe H King, Sri Kuehnlenz, Marvin J Lowenthal, Barbara K Luse, Alexandra K Theobald, Myia Williams, Benjamin Zhu
Related Practices:
Litigation and Arbitration, Corporate, White Collar Defense and Regulation, Intellectual Property and Technology
Office:
New York
Best Lawyers in America recognizes 12 Cohen & Gresser attorneys in its newly-published guide. The prestigious publication—now in its 31st edition—evaluates and selects lawyers through an extensive peer-review process, ensuring that the recognition reflects the consensus of top legal professionals regarding the expertise and abilities of their colleagues within the same geographic and practice areas.

Five C&G attorneys are recognized by their peers as “Best Lawyers” in their respective practice areas:

Seven C&G attorneys are recognized as “Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch” in their respective practice areas:

Related Attorneys:
Mark S Cohen, Lawrence T Gresser, Jonathan S Abernethy, Jason Brown, Mark Spatz, Luke Appling, Sharon L Barbour, William E Kalema, Phoebe H King, Barbara K Luse, Alexandra K Theobald, Benjamin Zhu
Related Practices:
Commercial Litigation, Corporate, Criminal Defense, Litigation and Arbitration, Internal Investigations, Securities Litigation, Products Liability, Mass Torts and Consumer Class Actions
Office:
New York
On July 8, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit delivered a significant win to Cohen & Gresser client, Eddystone Rail Co., by reversing a Southern District of New York decision that denied Eddystone’s motion to amend its complaint to assert subsequent transfer claims against lenders to Ferrellgas, the former corporate owner of Bridger Transfer Services, LLC (“BTS”), a contractual counterparty of Eddystone.

With the financial assurance of a multi-year take-or-pay contract that obligated BTS to make minimum monthly payments regardless of the services it used, Eddystone spent about $170 million to build a transloading facility that transferred oil from railcars to boats. Soon after the Eddystone transloading facility went into operation, BTS and many of its corporate affiliates were sold to Ferrellgas. At the time, BTS’s value was well over $200 million. Within months, though, the transloading arrangement became uneconomical for BTS’s corporate affiliates, so Ferrellgas stripped all of BTS’s assets and sold BTS for $10, causing BTS to default on its remaining obligations to pay Eddystone about $140 million. Eddystone brought an action in Philadelphia in 2017 to recover the fraudulent transfers involved in stripping BTS’s assets.

While the Philadelphia initial transfer action was pending, C&G filed an action for Eddystone in the Southern District of New York in 2019 alleging that Ferrellgas used former BTS assets to pay two groups of lenders, making the lenders subsequent transferees of the fraudulently transferred assets. Significantly, a protective order in the Philadelphia action barred Eddystone from using documents produced in that action in drafting its initial complaint against the lenders.

The Southern District granted the lenders’ initial motions to dismiss the complaint, finding that the complaint did not sufficiently demonstrate that the assets used to pay the lenders derived from former BTS assets. However, the court also rejected all of the lenders’ many additional arguments that the complaint was legally insufficient.

Following the dismissal of the initial complaint in September 2021, Eddystone overcame hard-fought opposition to get the protective order in the Philadelphia action modified in March 2022 to permit it to use discovery from that action to amend its Southern District complaint against the lenders. Eddystone then prepared a proposed amended complaint in April 2022 with charts showing specific cash transfers from BTS to one set of lenders through Ferrellgas and its subsidiaries. The proposed amended complaint also detailed how other specific BTS assets were assigned to corporate affiliates for no consideration at all and how the proceeds from later sales of those assets were transferred to another set of Ferrellgas lenders.

The Southern District nevertheless denied Eddystone leave to file the proposed amended complaint, finding that it would be futile because the factual allegations were still insufficient to show that assets from BTS reached the lenders. The court also found that the three years between Eddystone’s filing of its initial complaint and its request to amend was an undue delay that prejudiced the lenders.

Following oral argument that Judge Gerard Lynch of the Second Circuit called “great,” the Second Circuit reversed the District Court on both of its bases for denying Eddystone’s request to file an amended complaint. First, the Second Circuit found that Eddystone had alleged sufficient details to show that it was plausible that BTS’s assets were later transferred to the lenders. Then, the Second Circuit ruled that the District Court had exceeded its discretion in finding that undue delay and prejudice barred Eddystone’s effort to amend its complaint, finding that the District Court had not identified any prejudice to the lenders and that “Eddystone cannot be penalized for waiting until it received the District Court’s decision granting the motions to dismiss before determining what it needed to do to amend its Complaint, including modifying the protective order in the Pennsylvania litigation.”

The victorious C&G team includes Dan Tabak, Steve Sinaiko, Marvin Lowenthal, Ben Zhu, and Camille Delgado. Melissa Maxman was also part of the team that obtained the modification of the Pennsylvania protective order.

Article:
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Related Attorneys:
Daniel H Tabak, Stephen M Sinaiko, Marvin J Lowenthal, Benjamin Zhu, Melissa H Maxman
Related Practices:
Litigation and Arbitration
Offices:
New York, Washington, D.C.
Cohen & Gresser is pleased to announce that 29 of the firm's lawyers are included on the 2023 New York Metro Super Lawyers list and 11 lawyers are included on the 2023 New York Metro Rising Stars list across a range of practice areas.

Super Lawyers named C&G co­founder Mark S. Cohen one of the Top 10 lawyers in the New York metropolitan area. Partners Jonathan S. Abernethy and Karen H. Bromberg have also been named to the Super Lawyers list of the Top 100 lawyers in the New York metropolitan area. Additionally, Karen has been recognized as one of the Top 50 women lawyers within the same region.

Super Lawyers and Rising Stars are annual lists of outstanding lawyers who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. Only 5 percent of the lawyers in each state are selected as Super Lawyers, and only 2.5 percent are selected as Rising Stars.

The C&G lawyers recognized on the New York Metro Super Lawyers list are:

The C&G lawyers recognized on the New York Metro Rising Stars list are:

Related Attorneys:
Jonathan S Abernethy, Kwaku Andoh, Luke Appling, Elizabeth F Bernhardt, Karen H Bromberg, Jason Brown, Joanna K Chan, Mark S Cohen, S Gale Dick, Christian R Everdell, Robert J Gavigan, Lawrence T Gresser, Oliver Haker, Johannes Jonas, Nicholas J Kaiser, David F Lisner, Ellen Paltiel, Douglas J Pepe, Matthew V Povolny, Bonnie J Roe, Stephen M Sinaiko, Mark Spatz, C Evan Stewart, Daniel H Tabak, Scott D Thomson, Alexandra Wald, Sharon L Barbour, Randall W Bryer, Shannon Aimée Daugherty, Drew S Dean, Christine M Jordan, William E Kalema, Sri Kuehnlenz, Marvin J Lowenthal, Barbara K Luse, Benjamin Zhu
Related Practices:
White Collar Defense and Regulation, Mergers and Acquisitions, Litigation and Arbitration, Intellectual Property and Technology, Securities Litigation, Real Estate, Corporate Finance
Office:
New York
Best Lawyers in America recognized 14 Cohen & Gresser lawyers in its newly-published 2024 guide. The publication—now in its 30th edition—evaluates and selects lawyers based entirely on peer review. The survey process is “designed to capture, as accurately as possible, the consensus opinion of leading lawyers about the professional abilities of their colleagues within the same geographical area and legal practice area.”

Six C&G attorneys are recognized by their peers as “Best Lawyers” in their practice areas:

Eight attorneys are recognized as “Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch” in their practice areas:

Related Attorneys:
Mark S Cohen, Lawrence T Gresser, Jonathan S Abernethy, Jason Brown, Mark Spatz, Luke Appling, Sharon L Barbour, William E Kalema, Phoebe H King, Barbara K Luse, Alexandra K Theobald, Benjamin Zhu
Related Practices:
Commercial Litigation, White Collar Defense and Regulation, Securities Litigation, Corporate, Products Liability, Mass Torts and Consumer Class Actions
Office:
New York
Cohen & Gresser is pleased to announce that 37 of the firm's New York and Washington D.C.­based attorneys have been named to the 2021 Super Lawyers List across a wide range of practice areas. C&G co-­founder Mark S Cohen and partners Jonathan S Abernethy and Daniel H Tabak have also been named to the Super Lawyers list of the top 100 lawyers in the New York metropolitan area, and partner Karen H Bromberg has been recognized as one of the top 50 women lawyers in the New York metropolitan area.

Super Lawyers ranks outstanding lawyers who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. Only five percent of the lawyers in each state are selected as Super Lawyers, and only 2.5 percent are selected as Rising Stars.

Super Lawyers

Jonathan S Abernethy: Criminal Defense: White Collar

Kwaku Andoh: Mergers & Acquisitions

Elizabeth Bernhardt: Business Litigation

Thomas E Bezanson: Personal Injury – Products: Defense

Colin C Bridge: Criminal Defense: White Collar

Karen H Bromberg: Intellectual Property

Jason Brown: Criminal Defense: White Collar

Joanna K Chan: Securities Litigation

Mark S Cohen: Business Litigation

S Gale Dick: Business Litigation

Christian R Everdell: Criminal Defense: White Collar

Lawrence T Gresser: Business Litigation

Oliver S Haker: Business Litigation

Johannes Jonas: Mergers & Acquisitions

Nicholas J Kaiser: Real Estate

Jeffrey I. Lang: Business Litigation

Melissa H Maxman: Antitrust Litigation

Ellen Paltiel: General Litigation

Nathaniel P T Read: Business Litigation

Bonnie J Roe: Securities & Corporate Finance

Stephen M Sinaiko: Business Litigation

C Evan Stewart: Securities Litigation

Daniel H Tabak: Business Litigation

Scott D Thomson: Business Litigation

Alexandra Wald: Business Litigation

Ronald F Wick: Antitrust Litigation

Rising Stars

Luke Appling: Civil Litigation

Sharon L Barbour: Criminal Defense: White Collar

Drew S Dean: General Litigation

William Kalema: Business Litigation

Sri Kuehnlenz: Civil Litigation

Winnifred A Lewis: Securities Litigation

Marvin J Lowenthal: Criminal Defense: White Collar

Barbara K Luse: Criminal Defense: White Collar

Matthew V Povolny: Business Litigation

Benjamin Zhu: Criminal Defense: White Collar

Related Attorneys:
Jonathan S Abernethy, Kwaku Andoh, Elizabeth F Bernhardt, Karen H Bromberg, Jason Brown, Joanna K Chan, Mark S Cohen, S Gale Dick, Christian R Everdell, Lawrence T Gresser, Oliver Haker, Johannes Jonas, Nicholas J Kaiser, Melissa H Maxman, Ellen Paltiel, Bonnie J Roe, Stephen M Sinaiko, Daniel H Tabak, Scott D Thomson, Alexandra Wald, Ronald F Wick, Luke Appling, Sharon L Barbour, Drew S Dean, William E Kalema, Sri Kuehnlenz, Marvin J Lowenthal, Barbara K Luse, Matthew V Povolny, Benjamin Zhu
Related Practices:
Antitrust and Competition Litigation, Litigation and Arbitration, Commercial Litigation, White Collar Defense and Regulation, Criminal Defense, Intellectual Property and Technology, Mergers and Acquisitions, Class Action Defense, Real Estate, Real Estate Litigation, Corporate, Corporate Finance, Securities Litigation, Antitrust and Competition
Offices:
New York, Washington, D.C.

Practices