“If he sells this place, he’s going to make a s—load of money,” said Lisa Vanderpump on an episode of ‘The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.’ Will a lawsuit over a Malibu mansion derail a top L.A. real estate broker?
It didn’t go unnoticed by Nguema and his attorneys. They sent Umansky a demand for mediation, saying he had steered the sale to Oberfeld, even though he hadn’t bid more than anyone else and later required financial concessions.
The attorneys asked for a settlement of at least $8 million, saying that another bidder had offered to pay that much more for the property. The Agency made a claim to its insurer, Western World, but the company refused to pay. Instead, the insurer accused Umansky and the brokerage of failing to disclose its potential negligence and breach of fiduciary and statutory duties involving the Malibu home deal. The two sides reached an undisclosed settlement. Nguema sued too and reached a settlement that, net of legal fees, was close to the alleged higher offer for the property: $6.35 million was added to the pot of money and was distributed by the Department of Justice to a nonprofit operating in Equatorial Guinea when the federal asset forfeiture caseThe broker had put the litigation behind him, at a cost, but his legal woes would only get more complicated.Real estate investor Sam Hakim poses on the Malibu Pier. He had had his eye on the Sweetwater Mesa Road estate, seen behind him, for years by the time it came on the market. The Southern California high-end real estate market is a clubby affair, with many of the same investors and brokers working with one another on different deals. Hakim, a Beverly Hills resident, was counting on that fact to give him an edge in landing the Malibu estate. Hakim, 47, who runs a family real estate firm that mostly owns multifamily properties, said he had met Umansky about 15 years earlier through a mutual friend. Hakim’s broker, Aitan Segal, had a connection too. The broker had shared a listing with Umansky on a $10-million home, and had a “good rapport” with him for more than a decade, according to the lawsuit filed by Segal. The relationships and Umansky’s reputation as a top broker gave Hakim a good feeling about the deal. What’s more, the mansion seemed like a steal to him, given how heated the Malibu market had gotten. So when Segal put in a written bid meeting the $32-million asking price in July 2015, the agent told Umansky his client would pay “significantly more” — in the range of $40 million to $45 million, according to Hakim’s lawsuit and his attorneys. During a later tour of the property, Hakim and his broker told Umansky he would pay $40 million, according to the suit. But Hakim says Umansky told them that although he would relay the offer to Nguema, Hakim shouldn’t put it in writing since the owner was not profiting from the sale and was not motivated by price. Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, whose son once owned the Malibu mansion, arrives for his inauguration this month. Nguema had received five offers, including from American designers Richard and Laurie Lynn Stark, British real estate investor Nick Candy and Ricardo Salinas Pliego, a billionaire Mexican telecommunications magnate. Nguema responded with $33.5-million counteroffers. Candy was Nguema’s first choice, but when a deal was not reached with the British investor, Oberfeld secured the property in December 2015 for $33.5 million, though Hakim had met the counteroffer too. Although not the winner, when Hakim heard Oberfeld was the buyer, the investor thought he could strike a deal. It turned out, he said, the two had gone to high school together in Beverly Hills and Oberfeld’s sister was a close friend. Oberfeld met with Hakim and Segal at the developer’s offices in February 2016. There, Hakim said, Oberfeld talked about his ideas to improve and flip the estate, displaying plans included in the court file that state: “Product in this class now sells over 60, even 70 million in Malibu.” A few days later, Hakim sent Oberfeld a letter of intent to pay him $8 million to buy out his position. The developer countered with a demand for $15 million, prompting Hakim to walk away.about how Umansky and the Agency had been sued by their insurer over the flip. Hakim was stunned. He’d had no idea, he said, that Umansky had been in on the deal. As he considered the news, he said, he quickly came to believe that there was no way Umansky had relayed his verbal offer to Nguema.More than three years after the sale closed, Hakim and Segal in September 2019 filed separate lawsuits in Los Angeles County Superior Court seeking damages. The current defendants include Umansky, Oberfeld, the investment vehicle that took legal ownership of the mansion and Umro Realty Corp., which does business as the Agency. The two sides are in dispute over other newly named defendants. Hakim told The Times he would donate a portion of any proceeds to the people of Equatorial Guinea. It’s a case that has been bitterly fought given the dollars and reputations at stake, with Umansky denying that there was ever a higher verbal offer for him to pass on and portraying the whole thing as belated bitterness over a missed opportunity. In court papers seeking to have the case dismissed, Umansky has characterized Hakim’s narrative as ridiculous on its face, asserting that any savvy real estate investor would have put such an offer in writing. Had Hakim actually expected him to pass along an offer of $40 million, Umansky argues, he would have known immediately that something was amiss when Nguema countered at $33.5 million and later when the sale closed at that price. That Hakim’s accusations didn’t come for years — after Umansky says the statute of limitations ran out — shows the offer was never real, he says. In response, Hakim told The Times he and his agent “trusted” Umansky and believed the broker was trying to get him a good deal. He also said he accepted Umansky’s explanation that price was not the deciding factor in the sale given the unusual nature of the transaction and the involvement of the Department of Justice. His attorneys contend the clock on the statute of limitations started when Hakim read the article. Most recently, the two sides have been fighting over a batch of February 2016 emails that Oberfeld’s attorneys want to keep out of the case but that Hakim’s attorneys say will help prove Umansky and Oberfeld were planning the flip from the time the broker got the listing. Oberfeld’s attorneys say they are protected attorney-client communications that involve only routine business matters, such as the establishment of the limited liability company that acquired the estate. Timing is a key issue. Umansky told Nguema and the Department of Justice in June 2016 — weeks before the sale closed — that he had only recently been invited to participate in the buyers’ group. But Judge Mark Epstein has cast doubt on that, noting in a ruling this summer that documents in the case establish there was a “concrete February 2016 plan for a joint partnership that had long been in the works.” Mike Eriksen, director of the Dean V. White Real Estate Finance Program at Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management, said that brokers who are selling a property can participate in its acquisition under specific conditions.“It is not forbidden, but the letter of the law is clear: All interests of the broker must be known. So if they have an equity interest they need to disclose it up front and in a timely fashion to all parties involved,” he said. The plaintiffs also are seeking to depose all the limited investors to better understand how the investment vehicle was put together, a complex structure that profited Umansky at least $5 million, according to a deposition by Oberfeld. In seeking to have the litigation thrown out, Oberfeld’s attorneys have made arguments similar to Umansky’s in court documents. They issued a statement to The Times saying the allegations against their client are “legally unfounded, false and meritless.” “Mr. Oberfeld was invited to bid on the Sweetwater Mesa property and submitted a good-faith bid on the property without any knowledge of any offer by Mr. Hakim. Mr. Oberfeld’s bid was accepted only after another buyer’s offer did not work out. Mr. Oberfeld did absolutely nothing wrong and will eventually be fully vindicated in this case,” the statement said.It’s surprisingly hard to say with certainty who owns the Malibu property these days.say the owner is Lo, but the owner of record is a shell company established in the British Virgin Islands called Malibu LaMalibu. The Times could not reach Lo for comment.The law requires shell and other companies to report the true, or beneficial, owners of property to the Treasury Department, which keeps that information confidential. Anti-corruption groups say it is a flaw in the law, noting that many other countries require public disclosure. But there’s reason to question how aggressive the feds would be in going after Nguema’s wealth were the asset forfeiture case playing out today — given how the government’s strategic priorities have shifted.Nguema, now vice president of Equatorial Guinea, still loves exotic vehicles and jet setting, judging from theBut his social media also present another persona: that of the maturing leader with stylish glasses, touches of gray and an impeccably tailored suit handling domestic affairs, meeting world leaders such as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Pope Francis — and being courted by the Biden administration for his country’s new geopolitical importance.and could serve as a staging area for the Asian country’s military vessels.to Congress about the state of affairs on the continent, he said a Chinese military port on the Atlantic coast of Africa would pose a “significant threat” to the United States. He was talking about Equatorial Guinea, where Jon Finer, the U.S. principal deputy national security advisor,with a video of a gift, a silver platter engraved with a U.S. government seal. In November, he hosted yet another American official: David S. Cohen, deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency.Nguema had lost his Malibu home and its priceless view to anti-corruption prosecutors. But his new relationship with U.S. officials was satisfaction enough. He
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