Representatives of Holtec International and its ex-chief financial officer will not see each other in court until February because the former employee’s lawyer had a conflict, according to a filing last week in a New Jersey court.
Kevin O’Rourke sued Holtec, Jupiter, Fla., in June, but the company in December said that news stories and a statement about the lawsuit on O’Rourke’s lawyers’ website were defamatory. Holtec, the nuclear services company doing much of its business in Camden, N.J., was scheduled to present its case for admitting the defamation charges to the court on Jan. 19.
But O’Rourke’s lawyer already had a court date that day, so the court rescheduled arguments on Holtec’s motion to Feb. 2, according to Thursday’s filing with the Superior Court of New Jersey in Camden County.
A now-retracted story in New Jersey’s Asbury Park Press conflated O’Rourke’s legal complaint about what the ex-CFO called a misleading draft investor prospectus with the company’s finances, Holtec said. O’Rourke himself signed off on the company’s financial statements during his roughly one year with the company, said Holtec.
O’Rourke has accused Holtec of overvaluing several of its business lines in an effort to win an investment from Hyundai Engineering and Construction, Seoul, South Korea. Holtec and Hyundai announced a partnership in May.
