YOUNGSTOWN - After months of back and forth, the higher ups of the former Youngstown refrigerant company, Zoetic have reached an agreement in a civil lawsuit. 

Former board member Scott Gorley was suing the companies CEO Avery Hong and late Co-founder and Executive Chairman Jerome Ringo. Gorley was asking for more than $1.7 million for his investment, unpaid compensation and personal business expenses. 

Zoetic Refrigerants is a global company that opened a facility in downtown Youngstown in 2024. They only lasted about eight months before they abruptly closed the facility and left town. 

Once they were gone, Gorley filed the lawsuit which also claimed that Hong and Ringo never owned the patent to the refrigerant and he would have never invested if he knew that. In a counter motion, Zoetic accused Gorley of trying to steal their intellectual property claiming he scrubbed data from laptops. 

When 21 News interviewed Ringo in 2024 at the ribbon cutting ceremony for the downtown facility, he would not disclose how the gas is made. However he touted the claim that the process to make the non flammable non toxic gas is friendly to the environment and humans.

After more than three hours of negotiating on Wednesday the attorney’s for both sides came to a confidential agreement. Neither side would disclose any of the details of the agreement but cancelled all future court dates involving this specific matter. Hong and Gorley also declined to comment when leaving the courthouse.

Zoetic and Hong are still facing other lawsuits including from the Youngstown building's landlord that they left. That case is still open and pending.

A representative from Zoetic did not respond to our request for comment on if the company will ever return to Youngstown.