‘There was no plan’
On April 7, 2021, Western Technologies sent a notice of intent to sell UniEnergy’s collateral through a private sale. The company hadn’t made loan payments in nearly a year. The collateral included pretty much all of UniEnergy’s remaining assets, including its technology license.
On April 22, UniEnergy vacated its Mukilteo headquarters, leaving behind a mess of batteries and chemicals. The last 11 employees did not return to work.
“There was no plan,” said Villani, UniEnergy’s lawyer. “These guys are running around like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to figure out, ‘Oh my God, what are we doing now?’ It was a chaotic mess.”
David Wanek, CEO of Western Technologies, said in U.S. Bankruptcy Court that his firm searched for buyers, but they were knocking on all the same doors that UniEnergy had tried. Two candidates emerged: Jones’ Forever Energy and another new company, Vanadis Power.
Vanadis Power was formed in the Netherlands in 2020 to become UniEnergy’s European sales arm. Yang and Winter are listed on the website as founding members.
The head of Vanadis, Roelof Platenkamp, had a long career in the oil industry. He had offered to buy the assets alongside German industrialist Helmut Rebstock, the CEO of TGOOD Global, which makes prefabricated substations.
On Aug. 24, 2021, Western Technologies agreed to sell the assets to Vanadis, explaining they made the best offer and that Jones never demonstrated he had access to capital. The deal required just $273,000 upfront, with a few more million paid over time.
Jones called it a “totally bogus sale.” He said Western Technologies never gave him the time of day. He said Yang and Winter were trying to avoid debt and keep a federal invention out of American hands.
“This is just greedy old guys who screwed up and don’t want to give up,” he said.
Leading up to the sale, the national lab gave the go-ahead to move the technology license to Vanadis Power.
Citing client confidentiality, lab officials would not comment on how much they knew about Vanadis Power, where it was located or its plans to keep partnering with Chinese businesses.
When the deal with Forever Energy fell apart, Jones went on the offensive, warning the national lab that UniEnergy was out of compliance with its license and reaching out to journalists to do an investigative story.
Jones also led the effort to force UniEnergy into involuntary bankruptcy. According to court documents, Jones rounded up potential creditors and paid for attorneys’ fees. In Bankruptcy Court, lawyers claimed the sale to Vanadis Power amounted to a fraudulent transfer of assets. The judge said the argument had, by initial appearances, “a foot in the door.”
In May of this year, a federal judge ordered UniEnergy Technologies into bankruptcy, converting the case to Chapter 7 to liquidate the company’s assets.
In June, the national lab terminated Vanadis Power’s technology license for not paying royalty fees and not reaching other milestones.
The ReFlex assembly line in China, meanwhile, has gone dark, Yang said.
