The attorney of Leonard Cohen has responded to that previously reported lawsuit in which an investment company called Agile has accused the legendary singer songwriter of civil conspiracy and extortion.
As reported last week, Agile say that Cohen and his attorney Robert Kory made false claims when they accused the company of bearing "responsibility for the alleged misappropriation of Cohen's invested funds by Cohen's former manager". Their lawsuit concludes that Cohen and Kory "have threatened to irreparably damage Agile's reputation in order to extort millions of dollars from Agile and its insurer".
But the two defendants have vowed to fight the lawsuit, and say they plan to launch their own counter suit proceedings. Kory told CMU: "The suit filed by the Agile Group [last] Thursday night is completely consistent with Agile's reckless disregard for its client and his investments. We had hoped to reach a settlement with Agile that returned to Mr Cohen some portion of the retirement money the firm was authorized to administer on his behalf. Instead, in the middle of negotiations to determine how much Agile would pay Mr Cohen to compensate him for the money misappropriated, Agile launched a surprise attack in a baseless effort to besmirch the reputation of one of its clients."
Commenting on the singer's original problems with the finance firm, Kory continued: "Agile repeatedly failed to alert Mr Cohen to true account balances while allowing and authorizing undocumented withdrawals by a former employee. In doing so Agile failed to protect Mr Cohen's interests and retirement savings and knowingly misled him by providing inaccurate statements".
He concluded: "We will of course file a counter suit that lays out in detail how Agile acted in a reckless way that violated the firm's fiduciary responsibilities toward its client and consequently resulted in the loss of Mr. Cohen's retirement savings".