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Former Keller Williams CEO John Davis took purpose at Gary Keller in a press launch Monday, alleging the Keller Williams co-founder runs the corporate “just like a felony enterprise.”

Davis’s announcement comes as a federal district court docket in Fort Price, Texas, is deliberating whether or not to have Davis’s authorized claims towards Keller, Keller Williams, and former KW President Josh Workforce dealt with below arbitration.

Within the fall, Davis filed a lawsuit in what Davis stated is an effort to revive his status after sexual misconduct allegations towards him surfaced earlier in 2022 and to recuperate $300 million in damages. The Oct. 27 criticism additionally names Inga Dow, the CEO of a number of Keller Williams workplaces who lodged the allegations towards Davis, as a defendant. On the finish of January, the court docket refused Keller’s request to merge the fits filed by Davis and Dow, ruling that they may proceed as two separate instances.

In his swimsuit, Davis alleges he resigned from KW due to a disagreement with Keller over a enterprise technique that he believed would usher in much less revenue to Keller Williams workplaces, and that Keller and Workforce responded by smearing him and withholding Dow’s accusations from him when he was negotiating the sale of his KW market heart areas after his resignation, leading to tens of tens of millions in monetary losses.

“Mr. Davis seeks a trial by his friends to shine the sunshine on how Gary Keller, Josh Workforce, and Keller Williams Realty leaders run their enterprise and hurt the very people who made Gary Keller, Josh Workforce and others rich,” stated Paul Omodt, spokesman for John Davis, within the announcement Monday. The discharge was issued by the legislation agency representing Davis, Nesenoff & Miltenberg.

“Our most up-to-date movement earlier than the court docket seeks a public discussion board and argues towards Keller Williams’ use of arbitration to defend its misdeeds publicly. Mr. Davis and his staff imagine within the energy of their case and imagine Gary Keller and his scheme have equally harmed others.”

Keller Williams spokesperson Darryl Frost despatched Inman an emailed assertion on behalf of Keller Williams, Keller, and Workforce.

“Sadly, Mr. Davis is utilizing the court docket system, and now his paid publicist, as a car to claim unsubstantiated, unwarranted, and disparaging claims towards Keller Williams and Mr. Workforce,” Frost stated.

“We look ahead to the chance to disclose his claims for what they’re — an try and misdirect consideration and lay blame the place it shouldn’t be.”

Keller, Keller Williams, and Workforce filed a movement to compel arbitration in Davis’s case on Feb. 8, arguing that Davis signed “quite a few agreements” with the defendants that embrace arbitration clauses. On Feb. 13, Dow advised the court docket she agreed with Keller Williams that Davis’s claims — together with these towards her — must be resolved below arbitration.

However on Feb. 16, Davis advised the court docket that an settlement he signed with Keller Williams on Nov. 4, 2020 “expressly cancels all earlier contracts and agreements.”

Furthermore, Davis’s attorneys argued that the arbitration settlement the defendants search to implement is “unconscionable” as a result of it’s designed to forestall franchise house owners from suing and due to this fact conserving Keller Williams’ alleged wrongdoings from coming to gentle.

“Defendants are improperly making an attempt to silence Davis by broadening the phrases of the arbitration settlement, due to the potential for extra widespread litigation ensuing from the harms dedicated by Keller Williams and Gary Keller by way of the devaluation of many franchise house owners’ pursuits over time,” the submitting reads.

“The KW Defendants’ current movement earlier than the Courtroom — looking for to remain this case and compel arbitration — is an element and parcel of the KW Defendants’ calculated efforts to keep away from legal responsibility and deter others, together with KW franchise house owners, from asserting their authorized rights. Such reasoning for secrecy is towards public coverage.”

Davis’s attorneys particularly slam Keller and the best way he operates Keller Williams.

“The KW Defendants, and extra notably Gary Keller, run Keller Williams just like a felony enterprise, whereby investments and pursuits are taken or devalued by way of illegal techniques, whether or not by way of improper discount of market caps or different means, due to Gary Keller’s greed,” the submitting reads.

‘Franchise proprietor victims who’re focused by Gary Keller haven’t any selection however to just accept considerably lower than market worth presents or face shedding their investments by way of additional devaluation. A number of franchises are so considerably devalued by Gary Keller and Keller Williams that their house owners haven’t any selection however to surrender their investments. Gary Keller and people near him have largely profited by way of the devaluing of pursuits of franchise holders for a few years, and so they proceed to take action so far.”

Davis’s announcement Monday emphasised that the court docket’s most up-to-date ruling denied Keller Williams’s “authorized maneuvers to maintain the case secret and hidden … in favor of the general public’s proper to know.”

That ruling was on Feb. 17 when the court docket denied the Keller Williams defendants’ motions to seal each their movement to dismiss and the entire filings associated to their movement to compel arbitration, which is why the filings are publicly obtainable.

In that very same order, Decide Reed O’Connor condemned “querulous conduct” and a “sample of abrasive conduct” from the entire events within the case and threatened the attorneys concerned with sanctions for “[a]ny future deviations” from a “excessive normal {of professional} conduct.”

In a Feb. 20 reply to Davis’s submitting, attorneys for Keller, Keller Williams and Workforce don’t handle Davis’s allegations relating to the operation of Keller Williams. Slightly, they argue that Davis’s place that the topic arbitration settlement is unconscionable is “unsupported.”

“[T]right here is nothing within the Settlement’s arbitration provisions that’s ‘sufficiently surprising or gross to compel the court docket to intercede,’ which is the usual for substantive unconscionability,” the submitting reads.

“Lastly, arbitration shouldn’t be towards public coverage,” the submitting continues. “It’s nicely established that arbitration of disputes between events is strongly favored below federal and state legislation.”

Dow didn’t reply to a request for remark.

Editor’s word: Inman obtained an amended remark from Keller Williams noting the corporate was additionally responding on behalf of Workforce and Inman has up to date the story with that remark.

E mail Andrea V. Brambila.

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