Proposed Intervenors, Who Knew About Action For Over a Year, Properly Denied Intervention

On January 14, 2016, the First Department issued a decision in Matter of HSBC Bank U.S.A., 2016 NY Slip Op. 00269, affirming the denial of a motion for intervention, explaining:

Consideration of any motion to intervene begins with the question of whether the motion is timely, and the IAS court properly denied the motion on these grounds. Proposed intervenors have known about this action for years, and in fact their current counsel drafted and filed the original class-action complaint on plaintiffs' behalf. One of the proposed intervenors was even a party to the action before voluntarily withdrawing his claims to pursue a parallel action in federal court. As it is uncontested that the proposed intervenors knew about the pending action for over a year, the IAS court properly denied the motion to intervene as untimely.

(Internal quotations and citations omitted).