Two days after a formal complaint was filed with the New York State Attorney General’s Antitrust Bureau alleging deceptive trade practices and fraud, the risk management group G31000 North America has filed a lawsuit against Oxebridge.
G31000 LinkedIn claim of having “10,000+” employees will become a major case point.
The lawsuit alleges that Oxebridge attempted to harm G31000’s business through a “smear campaign” of intentionally inaccurate reporting of the organization, and its founder Alex Dali. A comparison of the court filing and the facts, including G31000’s own documents, would appear to contradict the accusations.
The complaint alleges that Oxebridge failed to abide by requests to correct or remove news reports published on Oxebridge’s site, but Oxebrige email records show that prior to publication of the articles, Christopher Paris alerted G31000 and asked for comments or corrections. At no time did the G31000 principals reply, except in one email where Allen Gluck indicated that he had advised Dali not to reply and cut off all communication. That email was itself in response to a request by Oxebridge to correct or comment on pending reporting.
The complaint also falsely claims Oxebridge did not publish corrections when new information was provided, whereas the Oxebridge site documented two such corrections, which remain on the site to this day.
Further claims made by G31000 allege that they have been unable to obtain speakers for its upcoming conference in New York, and that it was not able to publish the list of speakers out of fear of retaliation by Oxebridge. However, the G31000 website has not only listed the speakers, but has apparently attracted speakers from across the globe, including ISO TC 262 Chairman Kevin Knight.
“The accusations are factually incredible,” said Paris. “They deny some hard facts that they have no chance of getting out from under, including the irrefutable evidence of plagiarism.”
Alex Dali was found to have plagiarized a number of documents and then passed them off as his own. “The originals are still available on the internet, and the evidence shows irrefutably that Dali cut and pasted the texts, and then put his name on them,” Paris says.
Comparison of article credited to Dali, vs original document; click to enlarge.
Gluck “Fired” from Manhattanville, Still Claims Employment
The court filing may only serve to bolster the complaint filed by Oxebridge to the NY State Attorney General’s office. A key point of the antitrust assertion is that G31000 engages in deceptive advertising and unfair trade practices, by intentionally misrepresenting the credentials of its trainers and unaccredited training programs. In it’s court filing, G31000 claims that Allen Gluck “was constructively fired” as an adjunct professor at Manhattanville College because of the Oxebridge reporting, but as late as June 19th, the G31000 website still claims Gluck holds the position. As a result, G31000’s filing may only provide further evidence of untrue claims made to sell G31000’s products.
Allen Gluck profile from G31000 site as of June 19th. Notice he claims membership in “PC 176,” which does not exist, and still claims he works for Manhattanville.
The Gluck profile also claims he is a member of ISO technical committees “PC 262” and “PC 176” — these committees do not exist, as ISO technical committees are named “TC” not “PC,” making it appear that Gluck is not familiar with the names of the committees he is claiming membership in.
The G31000 complaint also alleges that Oxebridge attempted to have listed sponsors or supporters of G31000 drop their support. However, documents show that some listed sponsors never agreed to be listed, that some sponsors and former partners had terminated relationships with G31000 at least a year before Oxebridge encountered the group, and in one case G31000 has intentionally ignored a request to have a sponsor’s name removed. Coherent Advice founder John Lark wrote to Dali on March 14th and demanded he be removed as a listed sponsor, and yet as late as this evening, June 19th, G31000 continues to list Coherent Advice as a “partner” on their page here.
Letter from Coherent Advice, demanding removal of sponsor status on the G31000 site.
Coherent Advice logo and blurb appearing on G31000 ‘Partners” page as of June 19th.
While it is unlikely the lawsuit by G31000 was in retaliation of the NY Attorney General fraud complaint, “the timing will not help G31000’s case,” says Paris. “It smacks of spite.”
Oxebridge argues that unaccredited risk training certifications, such as those sold by G31000, are a direct and credible risk to public safety, as well as possible consumer or business-to-business fraud.
“We look forward to putting this in front of a jury, so they can decide if they really want unaccredited risk managers potentially involved in the design of airplanes, or in control of their financial institutions.”
Pyramid Scheme Alleged
Source: http://g31000.org/training/exam-and-certification/
The Oxebridge Attorney General complaint alleges that G31000 is operating a pyramid scheme, by requiring that its Certified Risk Trainers provide G31000 with a minimum number of additional training sessions over the three year certification life span, and requiring that certified students attend — at their own cost — at least one G31000 conference. Accredited training providers cannot make such arrangements, as they constitute violations of ISO 17024, which G31000 alleges to comply with.
“Alex will have a chance to defend his company against the ISO 17024 requirements in court,” said Paris. “I think it’s mission impossible for him.”
“Not to mention,” adds Paris, ” we intend on subpoenaing his eyebrow model.”
Christopher Paris is the founder and VP Operations of Oxebridge. He has over 35 years’ experience implementing ISO 9001 and AS9100 systems, and helps establish certification and accreditation bodies with the ISO 17000 series. He is a vocal advocate for the development and use of standards from the point of view of actual users. He is the writer and artist of THE AUDITOR comic strip, and is currently writing the DR. CUBA pulp novel series. Visit www.drcuba.world
