A MAJOR DEVELOPMENT IN THE DECLAN GANLEY–ASTRAEA DISPUTE Several weeks ago, I began looking into Rivada Networks because of my longstanding interest in technology particularly emerging communications and satellite technologies. My intention was not to attack Declan Ganley or investigate his personal affairs. I wanted to understand what Rivada was attempting to build, how its proposed satellite network would operate and why it could be strategically important. However, I had also read the deeply negative newspaper coverage of the legal proceedings and judgments against Ganley in the United States. I prefaced my original piece with some thoughts about what I call Irish begrudgery: our unfortunate tendency to tear down people who become successful. That attitude appeared particularly noticeable in some of the reporting about Ganley. As most of my followers know, I am a technology geek who presents a radio programme and is quite vocal about subjects that interest me. The further I examined the Ganley–Rivada story, the more significant facts I uncovered—facts that received little or no attention in much of the Irish and British newspaper coverage. I do not have a team of researchers or access to confidential sources. What I do have is a determination to establish the facts and present them fairly warts and all. After publishing my original piece, I was contacted by Declan Ganley, who said that it contained material factual inaccuracies. I examined the additional court documents and evidence provided and found that one significant point required correction. I made that correction publicly. But the new evidence also raised far more serious questions about the underlying payment, the subsequent assignment and the default judgment obtained against Ganley. What began as an examination of emerging satellite technology—and its implications for communications security, national security and Western strategic independence led me down an extraordinary legal and financial rabbit hole. These are my findings, based upon publicly available court documents. Where matters remain disputed, I have made that clear. Where a court has made a finding, I have distinguished that finding from the allegations advanced by either side. Here is the complete story including the extraordinary financial timeline, the disputed service of proceedings, questions concerning Astraea’s corporate status, Shuman’s wider litigation history and the latest unanimous ruling by a five-judge appellate panel. It is quite a read and it raises questions that can no longer be avoided. THE ORIGINAL INVESTIGATION — 13 AUGUST My original piece examined what Rivada Networks is attempting to build, the strategic importance of its proposed satellite network and the legal battles surrounding Ganley and his Rivada shares. It also examined the dispute involving Ganley, David Shuman, Worth Capital and Astraea NYNY LLC. Ganley had borrowed money from Worth Capital, secured against Rivada shares. Shuman guaranteed the loan. After the loan went into default, Worth foreclosed upon the shares. Astraea subsequently obtained a substantial default judgment against Ganley and pursued his money, property and Rivada shares. My conclusion was not that Ganley had proved his allegations. It was that the financial transactions, transfer of shares and rapid creation of Astraea raised questions deserving closer examination. Original investigation: nitter.cf/keira_con/status/20879… THE CORRECTION — 16 AUGUST After publishing the original piece, I located additional court documents showing that approximately $5.8 million supplied by two outside investors Anthony J. de Nicola and Nicholas Johnson was paid to Worth Capital on 7 August 2020. The investors were reportedly allocated 101,000 Rivada shares. That evidence contradicted one point in my original account, so I corrected it publicly and transparently. However, the correction raised a much more important question. Ganley alleges that the investors supplied the money as part of an agreement intended to settle the Worth Capital matter, allocate some of the Rivada shares to the investors and return the remaining shares to him. Ganley’s court papers cite sworn affirmations from De Nicola and Johnson describing the payment as having been made on his behalf “to discharge the underlying Loan.” James Tracey, who helped locate the investors, also gave evidence in related Texas litigation. A Texas appellate opinion records that Ganley and Shuman sought investors who would fund a settlement with Worth in exchange for Rivada shares. Shuman and Astraea dispute Ganley’s interpretation. They maintain that Worth’s remaining rights against Ganley survived the payment and were subsequently assigned. The central question is therefore straightforward: What did the parties agree that the $5.8 million payment and transfer of shares would accomplish? Correction and additional evidence: nitter.cf/keira_con/status/20889… WHY THE PAYMENT MATTERS The $5.8 million did not come from Shuman. Worth Capital was the lender. Shuman’s involvement arose from his guarantee of Ganley’s obligation. The money came from De Nicola and Johnson. Worth was paid, the investors received shares and Worth’s proceedings against Shuman as guarantor were dismissed. Ganley’s case is that the payment was intended to discharge the underlying loan, complete the agreed settlement and secure the return of the remaining Rivada shares. Shuman and Astraea say that although Worth was paid and Shuman was released from his exposure under the guarantee, substantial residual rights against Ganley survived. That interpretation raises an obvious commercial question. Why would Ganley arrange for investors to supply approximately $5.8 million to Worth, thereby releasing Shuman from his guarantee, while also agreeing that Shuman could retain rights capable of supporting another multimillion-dollar claim against him? Why would De Nicola and Johnson fund a settlement that preserved such a claim against the person who brought them the investment opportunity? Why would the remaining collateral not return to Ganley after Worth had been paid and the investors had received their agreed shares? Ganley says contemporaneous communications, payment records and evidence from the participants support his account. Shuman and Astraea deny it and maintain that the remaining rights survived. The Delaware court must now determine what the parties actually agreed. THE EXTRAORDINARY TIMELINE The documented sequence deserves particular attention: • 27 July 2020: Ganley’s lawyers received a draft settlement agreement referring to the assignment of Worth Capital’s remaining rights. • 7 August 2020: Approximately $5.8 million supplied by De Nicola and Johnson was paid to Worth. The investors were reportedly allocated 101,000 Rivada shares. • 9 October 2020: Astraea NYNY LLC was formed in Delaware. • 12 October 2020: The remaining rights against Ganley were assigned to Astraea. • 14 October 2020: Astraea attempted to file a confession of judgment against Ganley in New York. The filing was returned. • January 2021: Astraea commenced the breach-of-contract action that ultimately produced the default judgment against Ganley. Astraea therefore did not exist when the investors paid Worth. It was created approximately two months later, received the assigned rights three days after its formation and attempted to use those rights against Ganley another two days later. Ganley characterises this as an attempt to collect upon an obligation that the August transaction was supposed to have settled. Shuman and Astraea say the payment did not extinguish those remaining rights. That dispute was not determined when Astraea obtained its New York judgment by default. THE DEFAULT JUDGMENT, COVID AND SERVICE Astraea commenced its New York action in January 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ganley was reportedly in Ireland. He was not personally handed the proceedings there. Instead, Astraea relied upon alternative service provisions contained in the original loan documents and an address Ganley had supplied under those agreements. Astraea’s lawyers also emailed the summons and complaint to Ganley’s lawyers approximately 20 days before applying for the default judgment. Ganley subsequently argued that he had not been properly served and sought to have the judgment vacated. The New York courts rejected his challenge. In 2023, the Appellate Division held that Astraea had submitted a properly executed affidavit from its process server. It found that Ganley’s denial did not overcome the presumption created by that affidavit and that the contractual method of service was legally sufficient. The Hague Service Convention does not automatically give every overseas defendant six months to respond. Article 15 contains a conditional six-month safeguard where documents must be transmitted abroad for service and no certificate of service or delivery has been received. Astraea relied upon the contractual service mechanism in the United States rather than transmitting the proceedings to Ireland under the Convention. The New York courts accepted that method as valid. The judgment therefore remains enforceable in New York. However, it was still obtained by default and not after a trial of the alleged 2020 agreement. The court granting the default judgment did not hear De Nicola, Johnson or Tracey and did not determine whether the August payment was intended to discharge the underlying obligation. The service ruling: nycourts.gov/reporter/3dseri… Hague Service Convention: hcch.net/en/instruments/conv… THE ASTRAEA CORPORATE-STATUS QUESTION On 30 July 2026, a lawyer acting for another client filed a letter with the New York County Clerk concerning the Astraea name. The letter alleged that the original Delaware company operating as Astraea NYNY LLC had had its certificate of formation cancelled and was no longer in good standing. The lawyer claimed that his client had subsequently registered the Astraea NYNY LLC name and Delaware file number. The letter demanded that the entity represented by the lawyers pursuing Ganley stop using “Astraea NYNY LLC” in litigation, commercial transactions and payment-related communications. This letter is not a judicial decision. It does not establish that the New York judgment is invalid, that ownership of the underlying claim disappeared or that Astraea lacked legal capacity at every relevant time. It does, however, raise legitimate questions about the company’s corporate status, which entity controlled the name and under what authority litigation continued to be conducted using it. Corporate-status and company-name post: nitter.cf/keira_con/status/20889… SHUMAN’S WIDER LITIGATION HISTORY Shuman is not a stranger to substantial commercial litigation. That fact does not prove Ganley’s allegations. However, one earlier case is relevant because Shuman’s evidence was tested during a federal bench trial and the trial judge made unusually severe findings about parts of his testimony. In MDC S.p.A. v David Shuman, a 2021 dispute concerning art purchases, US District Judge Colleen McMahon rejected significant portions of Shuman’s account. The judge described testimony concerning his usual payment practices as “inaccurate” and said it “cannot possibly be credited.” She characterised another part of his account as “inherently incredible” and “impossible.” A further payment claim was described as “a recent fabrication invented for settlement purposes,” and the judgment also referred to an “utterly unbelievable story” and an “utterly incredible assertion.” The court examined two original invoices for paintings that were made out to Shuman’s brother, Michael Shuman, and his sister-in-law, Alexandra Shuman. The judgment described the names as having been used for a “dummy account.” However, the judge attributed the creation of those invoices to a gallery employee and found no credible evidence that Shuman had requested them or colluded in their creation. The court also rejected several claims Shuman sought to introduce shortly before trial, describing their timing as an apparent settlement tactic. The complete result must also be stated. This was a civil art and contract dispute not a criminal fraud prosecution. Shuman was not convicted of fraud. The court rejected most of the gallery’s claims and, following the necessary offsets, awarded Shuman a net $13,505.76. The relevance is therefore limited but clear: when Shuman’s evidence was tested against the documents in that case, a federal judge rejected important parts of his narrative in exceptionally direct language. MDC case docket: courtlistener.com/docket/159… Shuman has also been named as a director-defendant in a separate Delaware case brought by former Oura CEO Harpreet Singh Rai. Rai alleges that Oura and certain directors and officers prevented third-party sales of his shares before arranging to repurchase them at approximately $10 per share without disclosing material information about an impending investment and financing. He claims the subsequent financing valued Oura at approximately $5.5 billion and alleges around $142 million in lost value. The Delaware complaint includes claims of securities fraud, breach of fiduciary duty and negligent misrepresentation. Those are allegations, not findings. Shuman and the other defendants deny the claims, and the defendants have sought to compel arbitration. Shuman was also discussed as an investor and board member in Rai’s earlier California proceedings against Oura, but he was not named as a defendant in that case. Neither Oura case proves anything about the Ganley dispute. They are included only as context concerning Shuman’s wider litigation history. THE UNANIMOUS APPELLATE RULING The most important development came on 27 August 2026. The New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, First Department, Five Judges unanimously reversed the injunction that had prevented Ganley from pursuing his separate Delaware action against Shuman and Astraea. The appellate court held that anti-suit injunctions are rarely granted and that the Delaware proceedings concern an alleged separate 2020 agreement involving Ganley, Shuman, the two outside investors, the Worth settlement and the disputed Rivada shares. Crucially, the court stated that Ganley had not been previously allowed to litigat his claims concerning whether Shuman breached that alleged agreement. The court also rejected the argument that the Delaware case must necessarily be treated as an improper collateral attack upon the existing New York judgment. The Delaware court is entitled to consider the issues and decide what effect, if any, the earlier New York orders have upon Ganley’s claims. The ruling does not cancel or declare satisfied the New York judgment. It does not establish that Ganley’s allegations of breach of contract, fraud, tortious interference, civil conspiracy or unjust enrichment are true. What it establishes is that those allegations concern a distinct alleged agreement, have never been decided on their merits and cannot be prevented from proceeding in Delaware. Official appellate decision: nycourts.gov/reporter/curren… WHY THIS MATTERS When I published my original investigation, I said serious questions remained unanswered. When further documentation demonstrated that one point required correction, I corrected it publicly. We now know that: • Approximately $5.8 million supplied by De Nicola and Johnson was paid to Worth Capital. • Ganley’s filings cite sworn evidence describing the payment as having been made to discharge the underlying loan. • The investors reportedly received 101,000 Rivada shares. • Worth’s case against Shuman as guarantor was dismissed. • Ganley and Shuman fundamentally dispute whether the remaining rights against Ganley were supposed to survive. • Astraea was formed approximately two months after the payment, received the remaining rights three days later and attempted to file a confession of judgment another two days after that. • The eventual New York judgment was obtained by default using contractual service provisions rather than by personally serving Ganley in Ireland. • The validity of that service has been upheld and the New York judgment remains in force. • A publicly filed letter now disputes the former Astraea entity’s corporate standing and continued right to use the name. • A federal judge in an unrelated case previously rejected significant portions of Shuman’s testimony in unusually direct language but that case did not result in a fraud conviction. • The Appellate Division has unanimously ruled that Ganley’s claims concerning the alleged separate 2020 agreement have never been litigated and may proceed in Delaware. Ganley has not won the Delaware case. But Shuman and Astraea have lost their attempt to prevent that case from being heard. They must now meet the evidence in a court capable of hearing the participants and examining what the $5.8 million payment was actually intended to accomplish. The central question can no longer be avoided: If De Nicola and Johnson supplied approximately $5.8 million to discharge the Worth loan and if that payment also ended Shuman’s exposure under his guarantee on what basis did the remaining rights survive and become the foundation of another multimillion-dollar claim against Ganley? Why would the four people who arranged the payment have intended that result? Ganley has forced Shuman into the courtroom where that questions can no longer be avoided. Now the evidence can finally be tested in court.