{"id":142274,"date":"2026-01-20T18:10:58","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T02:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/01\/20\/willkie-farr-hit-with-735-million-fraud-lawsuit\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T18:10:58","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T02:10:58","slug":"willkie-farr-hit-with-735-million-fraud-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/01\/20\/willkie-farr-hit-with-735-million-fraud-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Willkie Farr Hit With $735 Million Fraud Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been an eventful year for Willkie Farr & Gallagher. The firm bent the knee to Donald Trump, pledging $100 million in pro bono payola<\/a> to avoid having to stand up to the administration\u2019s attack on Biglaw. That decision didn\u2019t sit well with the firm\u2019s own attorneys, triggering a mass exodus of West Coast partners<\/a> who fled to Cooley rather than work for a firm they saw as compromising the rule of law.<\/p>\n

BRC Group Holdings (the company formerly known as B. Riley Financial) filed a $735 million lawsuit against Willkie this week<\/a>, alleging the firm aided and abetted a fraud in connection with a 2023 take-private deal involving Franchise Group, the company that runs Pet Supplies Plus. According to the lawsuit, fraud was like catnip for Franchise Group founder Brian Kahn, who the plaintiffs allege ran a \u201csophisticated fraud\u201d to secure funds that helped him pay off debts incurred defending against a different<\/em> hedge fund fraud where he ultimately pleaded guilty<\/a>. Kahn\u2019s wife is also named in the new suit.<\/p>\n

BRC and its co-plaintiffs seek disgorgement of Willkie\u2019s fees.<\/p>\n

Willkie\u2019s relationship with Kahn has been star-crossed for a while. Last February, a Delaware bankruptcy judge removed Willkie<\/a> from serving as bankruptcy counsel for Franchise Group after amidst concerns about the firm\u2019s conflicts of interest<\/a>. As the judge noted at the time, Willkie failed to create any ethical walls until after the conclusion of the take-private deal, meaning all the knowledge gained by the firm from that transaction was properly \u201cimputed to the firm as a whole.\u201d <\/p>\n

Now BRC, who led the equity financing for the take-private deal wants its money back and sees Willkie as partly responsible for duping them in the first place.<\/p>\n

But, hey, we\u2019re finally not talking about the firm signing away its integrity to the Trump administration so look on the bright side!<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Willkie Farr Hit With $735 Million Fraud Lawsuit<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

It\u2019s been an eventful year for Willkie Farr & Gallagher. The firm bent the knee to Donald Trump, pledging $100 million in pro bono payola<\/a> to avoid having to stand up to the administration\u2019s attack on Biglaw. That decision didn\u2019t sit well with the firm\u2019s own attorneys, triggering a mass exodus of West Coast partners<\/a> who fled to Cooley rather than work for a firm they saw as compromising the rule of law.<\/p>\n

BRC Group Holdings (the company formerly known as B. Riley Financial) filed a $735 million lawsuit against Willkie this week<\/a>, alleging the firm aided and abetted a fraud in connection with a 2023 take-private deal involving Franchise Group, the company that runs Pet Supplies Plus. According to the lawsuit, fraud was like catnip for Franchise Group founder Brian Kahn, who the plaintiffs allege ran a \u201csophisticated fraud\u201d to secure funds that helped him pay off debts incurred defending against a different<\/em> hedge fund fraud where he ultimately pleaded guilty<\/a>. Kahn\u2019s wife is also named in the new suit.<\/p>\n

BRC and its co-plaintiffs seek disgorgement of Willkie\u2019s fees.<\/p>\n

Willkie\u2019s relationship with Kahn has been star-crossed for a while. Last February, a Delaware bankruptcy judge removed Willkie<\/a> from serving as bankruptcy counsel for Franchise Group after amidst concerns about the firm\u2019s conflicts of interest<\/a>. As the judge noted at the time, Willkie failed to create any ethical walls until after the conclusion of the take-private deal, meaning all the knowledge gained by the firm from that transaction was properly \u201cimputed to the firm as a whole.\u201d <\/p>\n

Now BRC, who led the equity financing for the take-private deal wants its money back and sees Willkie as partly responsible for duping them in the first place.<\/p>\n

But, hey, we\u2019re finally not talking about the firm signing away its integrity to the Trump administration so look on the bright side!<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been an eventful year for Willkie Farr & Gallagher. The firm bent the knee to Donald Trump, pledging $100 million in pro bono payola to avoid having to stand up to the administration\u2019s attack on Biglaw. That decision didn\u2019t sit well with the firm\u2019s own attorneys, triggering a mass exodus of West Coast partners […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":142275,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Headshot-300x200-qEb41m.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}