Baltimore’s Harborview Marina already sold at auction for $2.9 million. Yet the fight goes on between the rich former co-owners.

Attorneys for the minority owner, Richard Swirnow, are asking a judge to throw out the sale, arguing that his longtime business partner, Dr. Selvin Passen, intentionally drove the marina into foreclosure as part of a takeover scheme.

Passen bought the marina at the May 28 auction.

Swirnow filed a legal challenge to the auction last week in Baltimore Circuit Court, seeking to reverse the sale or, at least, a hearing to determine whether Passen broke his fiduciary duties to their ownership company.

“Dr. Passen and the entities he controls and operates breached those duties by orchestrating a series of self-interested transactions to divest the company of the marina property,” Swirnow’s attorneys wrote, “resulting in the sale of the marina to companies whose beneficial owner is Dr. Passen himself.”

Passen’s attorneys had not filed a response as of Thursday. The doctor and his attorneys have declined to comment on the dispute with Swirnow.

Just off Key Highway in South Baltimore, Harborview was one of the few marinas in the area that catered to liveaboards. Some couples had made a home on their boats there for more than a decade. The marina was also popular among neighbors who would walk or dine on the pier.

In March, Harborview managers abruptly evicted all of the boaters and closed the 278-slip marina, blaming unsafe conditions of the concrete pier. The emergency closure was met with skepticism and frustration around the docks. Behind the scenes, Passen and Swirnow had been fighting for control of the marina for about a decade.

Swirnow famously developed Harborview condominium tower and settled there on the South Baltimore waterfront. His entity owned 40% of the marina. An entity for Passen, the doctor turned developer and marina owner, controlled 60%. According to court records, they could not agree on whether to sell Harborview or buy each other out.

Their dispute came to a head last year. In August, the doctor registered a new company in Florida to buy the mortgages on the Baltimore marina. Then his marina missed the monthly payments on these mortgages.

Next, the doctor filed papers to foreclose on himself, saying in court records that his marina owes his new company almost $2.9 million. The foreclosure case pushed the marina into a public auction.

Swirnow sued to block the auction, arguing that Passen and his partner Dan Naor had intentionally made the business go bust in a plan to squeeze out Swirnow. A Baltimore judge denied the last-minute attempt to block the auction.

Passen was the lone bidder.