IBT Media Inc., the digital publisher that owned Newsweek, has filed a sweeping lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court accusing its former chief executive officer, Dev Pragad, and a group of top executives of orchestrating what it describes as a calculated act of betrayal that hollowed out the company and transferred its most valuable assets to a venture controlled by Pragad.
The complaint, filed in Westchester County, seeks at least $200 million in damages, along with punitive damages and legal fees. It alleges that Dev Pragad, together with former senior executives Alvaro Palacios, Dayan Candappa, Leiann Kaytmaz, Amit Shah, and Nancy Cooper, breached their fiduciary duties and misled IBT's leadership through a series of fraudulent misrepresentations in order to facilitate the spinoff of Newsweek.
