Since Oct. 26, 2009, plaintiff Kyle Silvestro was employed by NLP International Corp. as its vice president of business development. NLP provides natural language processing solutions for the health care sector and offered services with proprietary software licensed to it by Columbia University. NLP agreed to pay Silvestro a $6,000 monthly salary, as well as a 15 percent commission on all contracts he secured. During the course of his employment, Silvestro generated contracts with a minimum value of $3,321,300. Silvestro claimed that he was paid only $7,500 commission during his employment with NLP, and also that he was not paid his $6,000 salary in five of the last six months of his employment. Silvestro claimed that also during that time, NLP repeatedly promised him that he would be paid everything to which he was due. By April 22, 2011, Silvestro was still not paid. Silvestro resigned his employment with NLP at that time. Within two months of his resignation, Columbia University pulled NLP’s license to the software upon which its business was based. NLP sought to recover the value of the sales Silvestro secured against Columbia University. The effort ultimately resulted in a settlement agreement upon which the university agreed to pay NLP $3 million. Silvestro sued NLP, and NLP’s founder and Chief Executive Officer Bernhard Keppler for breach of contract and fraud. The defendants subsequently argued that Silvestro was not entitled to anything more than he had previously been paid by NLP. The defense contended that Silvestro’s $6,000 salary was actually an advance on commissions, and that the advances paid to him exceeded the commissions to which he was due at the time of his termination. NLP submitted financial documentation demonstrating that as of May 15, 2012, it had been paid less than 10 percent of the total contract value secured by Silvestro: $303,316.35. NLP filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection the business day before trial began in the matter. The trial was permitted to proceed against its majority shareholder, Keppler, on an alter ego liability theory. The court allowed NLP’s corporate veil to be pierced upon a finding of lack of corporate formality, although the court did not require additional evidence to find NLP was Keppler’s alto ego even though there was also ample evidence of commingling of funds between NLP, Keppler, and several of his other companies., Silvestro left his position on April 22, 2011. Silvestro subsequently began a startup company. Silvestro sought recovery for the salary and commission he claimed he was owed.