TRG-I Secures Victory in Significant Bet-the-Company Arbitration

Cleary Gottlieb successfully represented The Resource Group International (TRG-I) in a significant “bet-the-company” arbitration that it brought against its adversary, its former CEO and founder, Muhammad Ziaullah Khan Chishti.

In February 2025, TRG-I argued that Mr. Chishti had sold and pledged his shares of a TRG-I affiliate, TRG-P, in violation of a share purchase agreement (SPA). The arbitral tribunal agreed with TRG-I that Mr. Chishti had breached the SPA, enjoined future breaches, and, pursuant to a “loser pays” provision in the agreement, awarded TRG-I over $9 million in its fees and costs. Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York confirmed the award in full in June 2025, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the confirmation in May 2026.

Because Mr. Chishti failed to pay that judgment, TRG-I undertook asset discovery to identify money or property that it could seek to turnover to satisfy its award. That discovery revealed that over the preceding three years, Mr. Chishti had transferred more than $40 million to his wife, Sarah Pobereskin, largely to purchase shares and futures of TRG-P and to fund Isbei Limited, a Chinese start-up purportedly founded by Ms. Pobereskin. Following briefing on TRG-I’s motion for a preliminary injunction and an evidentiary hearing in December 2025, TRG-I successfully persuaded the court to freeze approximately $1.2 million in a bank account in Ms. Pobereskin’s name, which the court found that TRG-I was likely to succeed in showing were the proceeds of fraudulent conveyances. Following the issuance of that preliminary injunction, TRG-I received approximately $800,000 from Ms. Pobereskin to satisfy its judgment, but to date, the remaining more than $8 million remains unpaid.

In March 2026, TRG-I moved for turnover of the TRG-P securities and Isbei securities held in Ms. Pobereskin’s name, arguing that Mr. Chishti had fraudulently conveyed to her the assets used to purchase these securities. Among her defenses, Ms. Pobereskin contended that TRG-I’s “unclean hands” precluded it from recovering on its judgment.

On June 18, 2026, after a four-day bench trial and submission of post-trial briefing, Judge Rakoff found that Mr. Chishti had actually fraudulently conveyed approximately $8.675 million to his wife and constructively fraudulently conveyed another $1.1 million to her, and rejected Ms. Pobereskin’s unclean hands defense. Accordingly, Judge Rakoff voided these transfers and ordered Ms. Pobereskin to pay the lesser of $9.8 million or the outstanding balance on TRG-I’s judgment within 30 days.

The Cleary team includes partners Jeffrey Rosenthal, Lisa Vicens, Mark McDonald, and Katie Gonzalez, and associates Lilianna Rembar, Jessica Cuddihy, Peter Carzis, Sydney Massenberg, Ryken Kreps, and Jake Perlmutter.