JobsOhio has obtained court judgments or settlements totaling $6 million of a combined $10 million in jobs creation incentives it has sued to claw back from 27 recipients over the past five years, according to an analysis by Columbus Business First, a Courier sister paper.
Six of the companies it sued had expansion or relocation projects in Central Ohio, including two of three cases filed this month in Franklin County Common Pleas Court. Fourteen were in the Cleveland or Youngstown areas in Northeast Ohio, five in Northwest Ohio, and one each in the Dayton area and Southeast Ohio. None were in Greater Cincinnati, where JobsOhio has supported a variety of projects, including Medpace's Madisonville expansion, U.K.-based testing firm Preventx's new Blue Ash lab, among others.
The private economic development organization voluntarily withdrew 11 of the complaints, which usually means a confidential settlement, while an equal number came to the publicly disclosed amount due. The first lawsuit it filed was the only one so far that closed because the out-of-state company filed bankruptcy.
JobsOhio invested $287 million in economic development programs including grants, loans and services in 2022, according to its annual report, so the clawbacks represent a tiny fraction of its activity over more than a decade. Using profits from owning the rights to the state liquor franchise, the nonprofit works to attract businesses to move to Ohio or expand operations.
The largest clawback sought, and awarded in a settlement one year ago, was $4.3 million plus interest to repay a $4 million 2017 loan that EmKey Energy LLC received for a natural gas pipeline in Asthabula County in Northeast Ohio. That was the only case filed in U.S. District Court instead of state court, because the company is based in Erie, Pa.
The pipeline went in service in 2019 and has created jobs, according to court documents. However, after an agreed deferral of payments during the pandemic in 2020, the company did not resume payments that October as required, and JobsOhio declared default in February 2021.
Under the consent order dismissing the case in August 2022, JobsOhio granted forbearance for the missed payments to date and EmKey agreed to restart payments of the loan plus interest. EmKey is now current on payments, a spokesman said.
"We very much appreciate what JobsOhio was able to make possible," EmKey spokesman Dennis Holbrook said.
Two Central Ohio lawsuits were filed at the beginning of this month, seeking repayment of in-kind recruiting assistance to Columbus-based Olive AI Inc. and a planned Dublin office for Silicon Valley software development firm Nexient, now named Launch by NTT Data after acquisition by a Dallas-area company.
In a statement JobsOhio said it has a fiduciary duty to seek return of aid to companies that don't meet the job creation metrics of their agreements, and only after the organization works with the employers to overcome their growth challenges.
