Vegas nutritional supplement firms in litigation

Friday, Oct. 13, 2000 | 10:30 a.m.

Nova Pharmaceutical Inc. and Lake Trop LLC, the owners of the Lake Tropicana Apartments, have won a court order to stop a Las Vegas nutrition and vitamin product maker from foreclosing on the property on a dispute over a loan.

In a Clark County District Court lawsuit filed Tuesday, Nova and Lake Trop sued Nutri Pharmaceutical Inc., alleging it had no right to foreclose on the property because it had allegedly breached an agreement to advance a loan of up to $250,000 and had allegedly supplied defective nutritional supplements.

Andras Babero, Nova's attorney, said Nutri is trying to foreclose on the property because it claims Nova had allegedly received a loan and had defaulted on it.

Nova, which was granted an exclusive license to distribute and sell nutritional supplements using Golds Gym's trademarks and to sell these products to Golds Gym's franchisees, said it granted Nutri exclusive rights to make the product and secured the loan it was supposed to have received from Nutri with the property.

"This is essentially a dispute over what was actually provided to Nova and the actual value of the loan. Nutri claims to have advanced $161,000 to Nova, but we contend Nova didn't breach any contract because Nutri advanced only about $20,000 and part of the product they delivered was defective," Babero said.

The defendant could not be reached.