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Areas of Practice

Industries

Firm Management Positions

Consumer Financial Services, Co-Chair

Honors and Awards

Memberships and Affiliations

Member, American Bar Association

  • Litigation Section and Business Torts Group

Member, New Jersey State Bar Association

Member, Pennsylvania Bar Association

Associate member, Mortgage Bankers Association

Associate member, American Land Title Association and New Jersey Land Title Association

Education

J.D., Ohio Northern University, Claude W. Pettit College of Law, 1994

  • Editor-in-Chief, Environmental Law Journal

B.A., Gettysburg College, 1989

Bar Admission(s)

Photo of Francis X. Riley, III

Francis X. Riley, III

Partner
Princeton
750 College Road East, Suite 100
Princeton, NJ 08540-6617

Francis "Trip" Riley concentrates his practice on complex commercial litigation matters, focusing primarily on business torts and breach of contract in the context of, among other things, commercial and consumer financing and B2B transactions. Trip also litigates corporate disputes and claims related to intellectual property. He prides himself on partnering with clients to achieve positive business results in the often highly charged setting of commercial and corporate litigation, and is willing and prepared to take the difficult disputes to trial.

Trip also leads a team of attorneys that represent and counsel real estate settlement services industry clients, including mortgage lenders and brokers and loan servicers; real estate brokers, and title insurance underwriters and agents in litigation, regulatory and business matters. As part of this practice, Trip counsels on and litigates issues related to RESPA, TILA, HOEPA, Fair Foreclosure Acts, UDAP claims, insurance rate issues, and other statutory and common law consumer complaints, as well as governmental investigations and enforcement. He has litigated numerous other commercial disputes in which his settlement services industry clients have been a party. Trip also provides administrative and regulatory counseling on existing operational issues and proposed product and service programs to settlement services industry clients.

Trip also represents his financial services clients in a wide variety of actions (include class actions) in state and federal court and before arbitration panels, which arise from complex commercial transactions and relationships related to their lending, brokerage, and serving activities. He has also been involved in a variety of statutory and common law fraud, civil RICO, and civil conspiracy actions venued in New York, Maryland and Florida federal courts.

Trip regularly appears and tries cases in both federal and state courts. Because of the nature of his practice, he has been involved in numerous emergent applications for temporary and preliminary injunctions of everything from pending commercial and corporate transactions, copyright and trademark infringement, to the implementation of statutes and regulations, and then the subsequent litigation and trial focused on permanent injunction.

Experience

Recent additional representations include:

  • Obtained partial vacatur of a FINRA award in favor international financial services company.
  • Obtained multi-million dollar summary judgment in favor of international financial services company on a breach of services contract.
  • Obtained a multi-million dollar FINRA award in favor of an international financial services company, which was confirmed by the New York Supreme Court.
  • Obtained a favorable New York Appellate Division (1st Department) decision for an international financial services company concerning appellant's appeal of the trial court's denial of its motion to amend to include a patent invalidity claim and for additional discovery.
  • Representation of an international financial services company in New York state court action concerning allegation of defendant's unfair competition through it knowing use of misappropriated financial market data.
  • Representation of an financial services company in a FINRA arbitration concerning allegations of respondent's unfair competition through its knowing use of misappropriated financial market data.
  • Representation of tour bus company and non-controlling shareholders in a close-held shareholder's dispute.
  • Representation of national pharmaceutical business broker in state court action in which it alleges breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing and fraud against national pharmaceutical component company in the sale of one of its sterile injectable products unit.
  • Representation of the servicer of and investor in commercial mortgage loans in uncontested and contested foreclosures.
  • Represented the National Association of Mortgage Brokers (NAMB) in its challenge to the Federal Reserve Board’s Final Loan Origination Compensation Rule.
  • Represented a title industry client in a U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey putative class action in which RESPA, TILA, RICO and state consumer fraud claims were asserted. Obtained dismissal of the action on an initial 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss (some claims with prejudice).
  • Obtained on behalf of a mortgage lending client the dismissal of TILA, RESPA, and state consumer fraud claims brought in the Superior Court of New Jersey.
  • Obtained summary judgment in favor of a mortgage lender client against TILA, RESPA, Fair Foreclosure Act, and consumer fraud counterclaims by the defaulted borrower.

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