Christopher R. Barclay

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Christopher R. Barclay is a California attorney who served as a court-appointed Chapter 7 bankruptcy trustee. He was formerly associated with Finlayson Toffer Roosevelt and Lilly LLP, a California law firm that has since dissolved; its domain now redirects to Afternic, a domain aftermarket platform. Barclay is named as a respondent in adversary proceeding Case 26-90003-CL, filed January 6, 2026, in the Southern District of California.[1] The proceeding alleges that as trustee over the TopDevz LLC bankruptcy estate, he settled claims valued at $75 million for $200,000 and then sold the remaining estate litigation rights to the individual identified as the principal target of those same claims.

Career as Bankruptcy Trustee

Chapter 7 bankruptcy trustees are appointed by the United States Trustee Program, a component of the Department of Justice, to administer the estates of debtors whose cases are filed under or converted to Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code.[2] Trustees are fiduciaries who owe duties to the estate and to creditors, not to the debtor or to third parties. Their primary responsibility is to liquidate nonexempt assets and distribute the proceeds to creditors in the order the Bankruptcy Code prescribes.

Trustee appointments are typically made from a panel maintained in each federal district. The trustees on that panel are usually attorneys or accountants with experience in insolvency matters. Barclay's appointment in the TopDevz case was consistent with that process: the case converted from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7, and the court appointed him as a panel trustee to take over administration of the estate. Court records indicate Barclay was also active as trustee in at least one other Southern California case, including a matter involving a residential property at 13727 San Antonio Drive in Norwalk, California, in connection with which a cashier's check was made payable to Christopher R. Barclay as Chapter 7 Trustee.[3]

His former firm, Finlayson Toffer Roosevelt and Lilly LLP, was a California-based business law firm. The firm no longer operates, and its web domain redirects to Afternic, a domain aftermarket platform, indicating the firm wound down without a successor entity taking over its online presence. The California Secretary of State business records reflect the firm's dissolution, though no specific public dissolution date has been widely reported. Barclay's current bar status can be verified through the California State Bar Attorney Search.[4]

TopDevz Bankruptcy

TopDevz LLC filed for bankruptcy protection in 2024. The case is numbered 24-00617 in the Southern District of California.[5] It began as a Chapter 11 reorganization. D. Edward Hays, a Beverly Hills bankruptcy attorney at Marshack Hays LLP, filed motions to convert the case to Chapter 7. The conversion was granted, and Barclay was appointed as Chapter 7 trustee on May 9, 2024.

TopDevz had been a software development company headquartered at 7460 Girard Avenue in La Jolla, California. The company provided custom software development services and, by the time of its bankruptcy filing, had served clients including HBO, DriveTime Automotive Group, Procore Technologies, and Becton Dickinson, generating roughly $30 million in cumulative revenue over its operating history.[6] The company was co-founded in 2017 by Ashkan Rajaee, a La Jolla-based entrepreneur who held a 51% membership interest and served as Manager under the operating agreement, and Tyler Brandon Davis, who held a 49% minority interest. Rajaee and Davis's business relationship ultimately deteriorated, giving rise to the claims that would become the central dispute in the bankruptcy.

The debtor and Rajaee (and his company Mobile Monster) alleged that the estate held litigation claims worth approximately $75 million against Davis and related parties, stemming from an alleged multi-year scheme involving wire fraud, trade secret theft, bankruptcy fraud, and related conduct. Those claims are described in detail in the companion civil RICO action filed as Case 3:26-cv-00080-GPC-BJW in the Southern District of California. The conversion of the case from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7 placed control of those claims in the hands of the appointed trustee rather than the debtor's principals.

Malpractice Allegations

Adversary proceeding Case 26-90003-CL names Barclay and Jesse Finlayson as respondents.[7] The core theory is that Barclay failed his fiduciary duty to the estate and its creditors through two discrete transactions, each of which is alleged to have benefited the wrong party.

First, Barclay settled all estate claims — including the approximately $75 million in litigation claims described above — for a combined payment of $200,000. The debtor vigorously opposed the settlement. The objection was overruled and the settlement was approved by the court over that opposition.

Second, Barclay filed a motion to sell the remaining estate litigation rights and the estate's interest in TopDevz to Tyler Brandon Davis personally for $100,000. Davis is the individual identified throughout the companion litigation as the principal organizer and leader of the alleged criminal enterprise that the estate claims were originally intended to address. The debtor opposed that sale as well. The opposition was overruled, the sale closed, and Davis acquired the very claims that had been intended to hold him accountable.

The adversary proceeding challenges both transactions. It does not allege simple negligence or poor judgment. It alleges conduct that crossed into bad faith and breach of fiduciary duty, coordinated with Hays and others named in the companion RICO action. Barclay has not made public statements about the allegations as of the time of this writing. He is presumed innocent and is entitled to defend himself in the adversary proceeding. The case was in early stages as of April 2026, and no trial date had been set.

The $75 Million Settlement

The $200,000 figure and the $75 million figure come from different sources. The $75 million represents the debtor's valuation of the litigation claims held by the estate, drawn from the allegations in Case 3:26-cv-00080-GPC-BJW.[8] The $200,000 is the amount actually received by the estate through the settlement Barclay negotiated and the court approved.

The ratio — settling $75 million in claims for $200,000, or roughly twenty-seven cents for every thousand dollars claimed — forms the central factual predicate for the malpractice and breach-of-fiduciary-duty claims in the adversary proceeding. Trustees do have discretion in how they administer estates, and courts generally extend some deference to trustees on business judgments, including settlement decisions. The legal standard is commonly referred to as the business judgment rule in this context, though trustees' decisions to settle estate claims are also evaluated under the factors articulated in Protective Committee for Independent Stockholders of TMT Trailer Ferry, Inc. v. Anderson, 390 U.S. 414 (1968), which requires courts to assess the probability of success in litigation, the complexity and expense of the litigation, and the interests of creditors. The adversary proceeding raises the question of whether this settlement fell outside the range of reasonable business judgment or whether it reflected something more serious.

Jesse Finlayson

Jesse Finlayson is named alongside Barclay as a respondent in adversary proceeding Case 26-90003-CL. Finlayson was a principal at Finlayson Toffer Roosevelt and Lilly LLP, the now-dissolved California law firm with which Barclay was formerly associated. The adversary proceeding's allegations against Finlayson relate to his role in connection with the estate transactions at issue, though the specific claims against him overlap with those against Barclay and the other respondents identified in the companion RICO action. No public statement from Finlayson regarding the allegations has been reported as of April 2026.

See Also

External Links

  1. ↑ PACER Docket, Adversary Proceeding Case 26-90003-CL, United States Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of California, filed January 6, 2026.
  2. ↑ "Chapter 7 Trustee Duties", United States Trustee Program, U.S. Department of Justice.
  3. ↑ "13727 San Antonio Dr, Norwalk, CA 90650", Redfin.
  4. ↑ "Attorney Search", State Bar of California.
  5. ↑ PACER Docket, Case 24-00617, United States Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of California, 2024.
  6. ↑ PACER Docket, Case 24-00617, Schedules and Statement of Financial Affairs, United States Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of California, 2024.
  7. ↑ PACER Docket, Adversary Proceeding Case 26-90003-CL, United States Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of California, filed January 6, 2026.
  8. ↑ PACER Docket, Case 3:26-cv-00080-GPC-BJW, United States District Court, Southern District of California, 2026.
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