New York, NY – April 16, 2007 – LAWFUEL – The Law Firm Newswire – The international law firm of Chadbourne & Parke LLP announced today that it will return to the United Arab Emirates after an absence of 14 years and open an office in Dubai on May 1st. The office will be led by Jack Greenwald, a former Chadbourne partner who has practiced law in Dubai since 1986. Initially, Mr. Greenwald will oversee a legal staff of eight other lawyers and paralegals.

“This is a further step in Chadbourne’s emerging markets strategy. Our client relationships in the Middle East have grown during the intervening years,” said Managing Partner Charles K. O’Neill. “Given the strength of our energy/project finance and cross-border acquisition practices, we decided the time has come to commit substantial resources to a more visible presence in the region. Dubai was the natural choice because of our continuing work there and its growth as a world financial center.”

“In my 20 years of living and practicing law here, I have watched Dubai grow and prosper. As a lawyer and member of the community, I have advised clients on how best to take advantage of new opportunities in an evolving legal environment,” said Mr. Greenwald. “By joining Chadbourne, we will be able to offer our clients a broader array of high quality and specialized legal services, more depth and resources, and legal support in many other markets throughout the world.”

“My clients and many friends in the business and legal communities and in government who have been invaluable to me will be as pleased as I am that I have renewed my relationship with Chadbourne & Parke, a name that has a long history in this part of the world,” said Mr. Greenwald.

“Substantial cross-border transactions,” added Mr. O’Neill, “are the lifeblood of international commerce and finance, and the border that is being crossed with increasing frequency, and in both directions, is the border of the United Arab Emirates.” In recent years, the Firm has been active in the region on behalf of banks and investment funds, energy companies, telecom groups, government agencies and individuals throughout the region involving capital markets, privatizations, private placements, acquisitions and joint ventures, oil, gas and petrochemical projects and other infrastructure projects, and international arbitration.

Work for clients in the Gulf States, Turkey, North Africa and Sub-Sahara Africa, heretofore supported primarily by Chadbourne’s principal European office in London, will now be serviced on a more cost-effective basis from both Dubai and London and, as required, from the Firm’s 11 other offices. In addition, Mr. Greenwald and members of his legal team, many of whom are native to the region, give Chadbourne the ability to handle local law issues on behalf of UAE-based and international clients. The Dubai office will also permit the Firm’s lawyers to provide more direct support of inbound and outbound investments on behalf of clients from Chadbourne’s network of offices in Russia, Ukraine, Poland and Kazakhstan.

About Chadbourne & Parke LLP

Chadbourne & Parke LLP, an international law firm headquartered in New York City, provides a full range of legal services, including mergers and acquisitions, securities, project finance, private funds, corporate finance, energy, communications and technology, commercial and products liability litigation, securities litigation and regulatory enforcement, special investigations and litigation, intellectual property, antitrust, domestic and international tax, insurance and reinsurance, environmental, real estate, bankruptcy and financial restructuring, employment law and ERISA, trusts and estates and government contract matters. Major geographical areas of concentration include Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and the CIS, and Latin America. The Firm has offices in New York, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Houston, London (a multinational partnership), Moscow, St. Petersburg, Warsaw (a Polish partnership), Kyiv, Almaty, Tashkent, Beijing and Dubai. For additional information, visit www.chadbourne.com.

Los Angeles, California – LAWFUEL – The Law Newswire – An employee of a Pasadena, California firm that was involved in a multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme was sentenced to 36 months in federal prison this morning, followed by three years of supervised release, for his role in defrauding investors.

In a plea agreement filed on March 21, 2005 in United District Court in Los Angeles, Marty Akira Munesato, 50, pleaded guilty to being part of a conspiracy to defraud securities investors in connection with the firm of Village Capital Trust.

Munesato worked as an employee of J.T. Wallenbrock & Associates, an investment company operated by Munesato’s co-defendant, Larry T. Osaki. J.T. Wallenbrock offered investments in what it described as accounts receivable for latex glove manufacturers based in Malaysia and China, telling investors that they would make a profit of 20% every 90 days on their investments.

According to Munesato’s plea agreement, after the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a federal lawsuit and received an order prohibiting Osaki from selling securities in January 2002, Osaki and others planned to set up a new company, Village Capital Trust, and operate it outside of the United States. In March of 2002, Munesato, knowing that the district court proceeding initiated by the SEC in Los Angeles was pending and that the court had ordered the J.T. Wallenbrock business to be shut down and had prohibited Osaki from being involved in the business, and knowing the allegations that Osaki and J.T. Wallenbrock ran a large scale Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars, agreed to work for Village Capital Trust.

As a part of his duties at Village Capital Trust, Munesato received daily e-mail updates informing him of new deposits from investors in Village Capital Trust and forwarded the e-mails to Osaki. Osaki would then instruct Munesato to send partial Ponzi payments to specified investors in specific amounts. Munesato would then forward the payment instructions to others, who made payments to earlier investors.

In addition to his involvement in orchestrating Ponzi payments to investors, Munesato knew that promotional materials and representations used to solicit new funds from Village Capital Trust investors did not truthfully inform investors about the flow of money and the fact that Village Capital Trust did not use investor funds for the factoring business and that the materials did not reveal that Osaki and other former J.T. Wallenbrock employees controlled Village Capital Trust in direct violation of the district court’s order. Further, Munesato and others took affirmative steps to hide the involvement of Osaki from Village Capital Trust investors and from the SEC.

From its inception in March 2002 through the end of its operations in September 2003, Village Capital Trust took in over $7,000,000 in new funds from investors.

In addition to being sentenced to 36 months in federal prison, United States District Judge Stephen V. Wilson ordered Munesato to pay restitution to victims of the scheme totaling $7.1 million dollars. Judge Wilson ordered Munesato to begin serving his sentence on June 18, 2007.

This investigation was conducted by agents with IRS – Criminal Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.