On January 12, 2023, the First Department issued a decision in Kostyatnikov v. HFZ Capital Group LLC, 2023 NY Slip Op. 00176, holding that veil piercing claims do not need to be plead with particularity, explaining:
The allegations in the complaint adequately pleaded a basis for piercing the corporate veil as against Owner to support plaintiffs’ claims for specific performance requiring Owner to transfer certain specified condominium units to plaintiffs. Contrary to Owner’s contention, a plaintiff is not required to plead the elements of alter ego liability with the particularity required by CPLR 3016(b), but only to plead in a non-conclusory manner. Here, the complaint adequately alleges that defendants Ziel Feldman and Nir Meir exercised domination and control over defendant entities, including Owner, through defendant HFZ Capital Group LLC, by abusing the corporate form to deprive plaintiffs of their investment. Those allegations, if established, support a finding that defendants exercised complete domination of the corporation in respect to the transaction attacked; and that such domination was used to commit a fraud or wrong against the plaintiff which resulted in plaintiff’s injury.
Although Owner urges that it was not until well after plaintiffs lost their investment, purportedly based on the other defendants’ conduct, that one of the other defendant entities agreed to acquire the condominium units from Owner in order to fulfill defendants’ obligations to plaintiffs, these circumstances reflect the very principles underlying alter ego liability and its fact-laden nature. Here, Owner does not deny that it owned the condominium units at the time the parties entered into the agreement to transfer the units to plaintiffs, that Owner refused to deliver the units to plaintiffs, and at the time, it was owned by HFZ Capital and controlled by Feldman. Those allegations are more than adequate to survive a pre-answer motion to dismiss.
(Internal quotations and citations omitted).