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Stuart R. Lombardi

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The profile

Willkie Farr & Gallagher litigation partner who tried Womply's JAMS arbitration against the PPP lender Benworth, which ended in a corrected award of about $117.9 million, and appeared for Womply in the follow-on federal cases in California and Puerto Rico.

In the archive

Identity and role

Stuart R. Lombardi is a partner in Willkie Farr & Gallagher's Litigation Department in New York (Stuart R. Lombardi — Partner, Litigation, New York (Willkie)). He has been admitted in New Jersey since November 2012 and in New York since March 2013, according to his January 2023 pro hac vice application in Puerto Rico (D.P.R. Dkt. 9). Willkie says he and Alexander L. Cheney led the firm's team for Womply (Willkie release, June 2024).

The Benworth arbitration

Womply (OTO Analytics) routed PPP applications to Benworth Capital Partners, a Miami nonbank lender, under referral and developer agreements, the last of them an amended referral agreement of April 14, 2021. The dispute was over what Benworth still owed. The corrected final award records that Benworth had already paid Womply $464,991,487 in fees and had funded 304,897 PPP loans worth $4,022,951,398 (corrected final award).

Arbitrator Alexander L. Brainerd heard the case over seven days at JAMS in San Francisco in March 2023. The award lists Lombardi among Womply's trial counsel with Cheney, Joshua Levy, Katherine Hanley and Daniel Morris; Jorge L. Piedra and two colleagues from Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton appeared for Benworth. Witnesses included Toby Scammell, Womply's founder, and Bernardo Navarro, Benworth's president. Before the hearing the arbitrator refused to admit the House Select Subcommittee's fintech report for its content, calling it "rank hearsay."

The corrected final award of June 26, 2024 granted Womply's three breach-of-contract claims: $4,348,275 in referral fees, $17,067,000 in API fees and $64,884,617 in technology fees, plus $25,363,697.68 in finance charges, $5,883,708.58 in attorneys' fees and $372,956.46 in costs. That totals $117,920,254.72. Benworth's counterclaims were denied except one on access to loan files and the platform (see the Benworth profile).

The court cases that followed

In January 2023 Womply sued Benworth Capital Partners PR LLC, Benworth Capital Partners LLC, Bernardo Navarro and Claudia Navarro in the District of Puerto Rico (No. 3:23-cv-01034), and Lombardi applied for admission pro hac vice on January 27 (Dkt. 9). The case was later consolidated with a Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco suit over Benworth's PPP Liquidity Facility borrowing and was dismissed with prejudice on September 9, 2025 after a confidential settlement (case file).

On July 1, 2024 Willkie filed Womply's petition to confirm the award in the Northern District of California (No. 3:24-cv-03975), with Lombardi on the caption, pro hac vice forthcoming (Dkt. 5). It was consolidated with Benworth's petition to vacate. The parties dismissed all claims with prejudice on January 2, 2025, each side bearing its own costs, and no order confirming or vacating the award was entered (case file).

Lombardi has no personal PPP loan, enforcement action or government-aid issue in these records.

Since 2025

Willkie's biography describes his practice as commercial, bankruptcy, private-equity and antitrust litigation. The firm announced in February 2025 that the Benworth award was recognized among the Daily Journal's Top Verdicts of 2024, and in August 2025 that Law360 had named him a Rising Star in bankruptcy (Willkie).

Documents on this site

Original source documents and archived copies

Sources

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