Trump Forms New Company, in Possible Attempt to Evade NY Lawsuit – By Ben Protess, Jonah E. Bromwich and William K. Rashbaum (The New York Times) / Oct 13, 2022
Days before the New York attorney general filed a lawsuit accusing Donald J. Trump and his company of fraud and seeking to shut down some of their business in the state, Mr. Trump’s lawyers created a new company in Delaware.
The new company’s name had a familiar ring to it: the Trump Organization, the same name as his old company, now threatened by the lawsuit. And on Sept. 21, the day the suit was filed, the new Delaware company filed paperwork in New York, seeking to be recognized there as the Trump Organization II.
Those maneuvers were detailed for the first time in a court filing on Thursday from the attorney general, Letitia James, who raised the prospect that Mr. Trump was seeking an end run around some of her lawsuit’s harshest potential punishments. By forming the new company, her filing said, the Trump Organization “now appears to be taking steps to restructure its business to avoid existing responsibilities under New York law,” raising concerns that the business might shift assets out of state.
But her filing acknowledged that Mr. Trump’s lawyers had explicitly said they had not taken any steps to avoid the potential consequences of the lawsuit. Mr. Trump’s lawyers, according to the court filing, also offered to provide “assurances and advance notice” to address Ms. James’s concerns.
