Curtain Wall Supplier Claims Rival Engaged in Fraud

Abstract

The latest lawsuit was filed in July in federal court in Chicago by Reflection against Kurt LeVan and Talon Wall Holdings, Chicago Heights Glass Group and Entekk Group, three companies owned by LeVan. The suit alleges that "LeVan companies and Talon Wall licensees marketed, promoted and sold Talon Wall to over a dozen occupied high-rise buildings in Chicago, New York, Denver and elsewhere with no fire protective material whatsoever installed in the curtain-wall fire gap." Back in January, LeVan filed suit alleging Reflection had created a knock-off of its window-wall system, based on a former LeVan employee's knowledge, and had installed the system on several construction projects. The Reflection suit also claims the companies made "Materially false and misleading commercial representations to win lucrative construction contracts, including touting their own Talon Wall product as meeting applicable fire-safety standards with the knowledge that such representations are untrue, likely to mislead, deceive and/or result in material harm."LeVan, in turn, claims that the Reflection lawsuit is retaliation for his lawsuit filed in January. "Phelps' unique knowledge of Talon Wall's most confidential information-in particular, the effectiveness of the Talon Wall and certain nonpublic trade system improvements to the Talon Wall System-was one of the primary reasons that Phelps was hired by Reflection Window & Wall," says the complaint. In its legal action, Reflection claims it lost more than $13 million in bids to LeVan's companies, due to LeVan's companies misrepresenting and exaggerating the efficacy of the Talon Wall system. George Spathis, an attorney for Reflection, asserts Reflection has devised a way to pack the void of its notched curtain wall system, the U8000, with a material to deter fire. "Because Talon Wall has a shelf that actually prevents you from looking down and actually getting in there," they can't replicate Reflection's process, he claims.