An arbitrator this month awarded approximately $1.34 billion to Laguna Beach businessman Mohammad Honarkar in connection with a years-long real estate dispute.
A local property owner, Honarkar was “fraudulently induced” in dealings with financier Mahender Makhijani, arbitrator David A. Thompson, a retired judge, ruled on May 12.
Makhijani, the Newport Beach real estate firm Continuum Analytics and affiliated entities, the arbitrator concluded, breached agreements around the financing of apartment complexes, hotels and additional commercial properties previously owned by Honarkar and his company, 4G Wireless, Inc.
“The arbitrator found, after a multi-week evidentiary hearing and a thorough review of the record, that the respondents fraudulently induced our clients into a joint venture, encumbered our clients’ own assets to fund the respondents’ supposed capital contribution and then concealed what they had done,” Aaron May of Halpern May Ybarra Gelberg LLP, who represented Honarkar and 4G Wireless, stated in a news release.
“The award reflects both the scale of the real estate portfolio involved and the years of litigation required to uncover the full scope of the misconduct.”
Legal representatives for Makhijani did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
The real estate portfolio comprised about two dozen properties, with addresses in Irvine, Laguna Beach, Los Angeles, Newport Beach, Redlands and Tustin. Those properties included the Hotel Laguna and the 14 West hotel in Laguna Beach, where a battle over ownership and operation played out publicly in a civil dispute involving both parties at the properties in 2023.
In a partial final award, which came out on May 23, 2025, Thompson determined Makhijani and his affiliates used financing secured through properties in the portfolio to help fund a $30-million capital contribution promised as part of a joint venture. Many of the properties within the portfolio have fallen into foreclosure or entered into receivership proceedings, the arbitrator said.
The arbitration awarded Honarkar $652 million in punitive damages and $326 million in compensatory damages, with an additional $350 million awarded on behalf of the joint venture, currently in receivership.
“I got my judgment,” Honarkar told the Daily Pilot Friday, adding that he now hopes that authorities will help him retrieve the documents necessary for the properties to be returned to him.
“Criminals like this, they have multiple companies, multiple places,” Honarkar said. “They hide, and [Makhijani] doesn’t give you any paper. … That’s how you can find where the money is. Money is not ice — it doesn’t get melted. It goes from bank to another bank to another bank, or they wire transfer out of the country, whatever they do.
“When they don’t give you that, you win the case, but how I’m going to go collect it all depends on how I can get these documents. Can I get [them]? No, but the government can….
Read More: Arbitrator awards $1.34B in O.C. real estate fraud case
