Pryor Cashman's Real Estate Litigation team, led by litigation partners Todd Soloway and Bill Charron, has scored a major victory for its client, Mark Harounian, in his long-running feud with certain of his family members.
Harounian has headed the wildly successful family real estate business for over 30 years – growing the business from a single property to over 25 extremely valuable properties across Manhattan. Over the past 10 years, Harounian has been subjected to embittered litigation brought by one of his sisters, Mehrnaz Homapour, supported by her husband, Shahriar Homapour.
Homapour, who has a minority ownership interest and is an entirely passive member of the business, has unsuccessfully tried for 10 years to commandeer the companies away from her brother, including trying to have Harounian removed as the manager by alleging widescale "looting" of the companies by him. Homapour has also accused Harounian of fraud and tried to have the companies' operating agreements nullified, claiming she was fraudulently induced by Harounian into signing them.
Harounian has at all times steadfastly maintained that all forms of compensation that he received were covered by the parties' operating agreement; that his family members were well aware of and ratified his conduct; and that all of the family members openly benefitted from the companies' largesse since their founding decades ago by their esteemed father, Jacob Harounian.
After nearly 10 years of hard-fought litigation between the family members, Pryor Cashman moved for summary judgment on the basis of critical admissions elicited from Homapour and from Jacob. On August 8, 2025, the Supreme Court of the State of New York in New York County overwhelmingly ruled in Harounian's favor and dismissed nearly all of Homapour's claims.
Citing numerous examples of deposition admissions and other evidence, the Court found that Homapour could not possibly prove that she had been defrauded. The Court also dismissed Homapour's claim to have Harounian removed as the companies' manager.
The Court additionally rejected and denied Homapour's own motion for summary judgment on her claims of breach of fiduciary duty, finding that "it has seen enough unusual dealings in this rigidly patriarchal family business to find it a triable question in these circumstances" whether the funds Harounian utilized were part of his reasonable compensation "or were otherwise part of a course of conduct approved or ratified by Jacob and the other members."
The summary judgment victory for Harounian is the product of Pryor Cashman's unwavering belief in its client, and its development of a strong record in discovery that fundamentally contradicted Homapour's narrative.
Todd Soloway, the co-chair of the firm's litigation department, says this result "was a long time coming, particularly given the attempts by the other family members to generate scandalous headlines. Mark Harounian deserves this vindication." Litigation partner Bill Charron, who argued the motion for summary judgment, added: "From the beginning, we believed in our client and never believed the story the other side was trying to spin. The Court's thorough review of the record and its decision are highly gratifying."
The case will now proceed to a bench trial on the few remaining claims regarding the reasonableness of Harounian's compensation – a trial that will allow the Court to evaluate the parties' respective credibility on whether it was, indeed, generally known and ratified by the entire family that Harounian's compensation was appropriate in view of the companies' enormous growth and success.
Additional members of Pryor Cashman's team include Joshua Weigensberg, Matthew Lamb, Lawrence Keating, Simon Shahinian, and Helen (Nellie) Hunter.
A copy of the Court's summary judgment decision can be found below.
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