When it was learned that the national outline project (“NOP”) was not progressing, out of concern that the problem was a financing one, a financer was enrolled for the developer, in order to attempt to get the project running. During the negotiations with the potential financer, it was learned that the developer was in a conflict with his partners in the developing company, which was the main reason for the project stalling, rather than any financing problem.
Another investigation, including tracking down court cases in which the adjudication between the developing company’s partners and presence in the hearing was being conducted, showed that the conflict was complex and not resolvable in the short term. The conclusion was that the NOP project would not advance until the conflict between the partners in the developing company would be solved, within which the landowners who had engaged with the developing company in the NOP project ostensibly had no standing.
Accordingly, it was necessary to enroll all the landowners, even though they had not been united previously, into a single group and leverage clauses of the NOP agreement that they permitted using, albeit in a problematic manner, to threaten to sever ties with the developing company.
The danger of losing the project resulted in the stronger partner out of the developing company partners to acquire the weaker one. The result was that in just a few weeks, the NOP project was extracted from the parties who had delayed it and was put back on its construction track.