While luxury yacht builder Christensen Shipyards is getting the wind back in its sails, there is still plenty of squabbling below deck.
The wealthy Tennessee businessman who now owns the Vancouver shipyard has sued the former board of directors for more than $22 million.
“As an officer or director of a company, you have a certain amount of responsibility to do the right thing with other people’s money,” Henry Luken said Wednesday. “What I’m still looking for is, ‘Where did my money go?’ ”
The lawsuit filed in Clark County Superior Court this week claims that Christensen Shipyards founder and former CEO Dave Christensen, former president Joe Foggia and board of directors members Pat Withee and Dean Anderson mismanaged $18 million Luken had placed as a deposit on a yacht by spending it on expenses unrelated to building the yacht.
“They didn’t have any permission to use my deposit on my boat to do anything,” Luken said. “I think there’s a law on that that goes back to ‘thou shalt not steal.’ ”
The suit adds to a pile of litigation over the shipyard that shut down briefly last year and today employs about 130 people near Marine Park on the Columbia River.
A judge last spring handed Christensen Shipyards Ltd. to a receiver, or financial administrator, to manage claims against the insolvent company.
Then-half-owner Luken paid $5.5 million for the company’s assets and reopened the business as Christensen Shipyards LLC not long after.
The receiver alleged in court filings that the old company had contracted boats at below cost while Christensen racked up more than $40 million in excess liabilities.
Luken refuted the receiver’s claims of “insider deals” for yachts, and said the boats were able to be built for the contracted amount.
“The math is simple,” he said. “The labor, the materials and the overhead — there really isn’t anything else. … To claim I set a price and sold them to other people — I never made a bloody dime there.”
He said the company’s other directors — the four people he’s suing — are the only ones to blame for the company’s financial collapse.
“They materially disconnected me several years before,” he said, adding that he hadn’t been privy to board meetings or financial reports while the company was tanking.
Former company president Foggia — the stepson of founder Dave Christensen, who stepped away from the company for health reasons in 2009 — moved to Florida last year to work for a yacht brokerage.
Luken’s lawsuit alleges Foggia and the other directors “breached their fiduciary duties of care and loyalty owed to Mr. Luken as officers and directors” and “knew (Christensen) was insolvent or engaged in business that would result in it being unable to pay its debts as they became due.”
That mirrors what the receiver has claimed in its lawsuit, except in this case the blame is shifted away from Luken and even more money is being sought.
“This is not millions for pain and suffering — it’s trying to recover checks he wrote,” said Luken’s attorney, William Randolph Turnbow of Eugene, Ore.
Attorneys for the defendants could not be reached Wednesday, and they have filed no responses in the case so far.
With four hulls awaiting completion at the shipyard, Luken said this latest suit shouldn’t affect the success of the new company.
“This is between me and the officers of the company in receivership,” he said. “The key part is we have the yard back open and we’re going forward.”
