Practice Areas
Real Estate
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February 22, 2012
Peterson Buys Stake In Stalled $320M Md. Center
Developer The Peterson Cos. has bought into a $320 million project in Bethesda, Md., that has been stalled for a decade and proposes more than 1 million square feet of residential, office, hotel and retail space, the company announced Wednesday.
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February 22, 2012
Bill Would Spur Lenders To Speed Up Short Sales
A bipartisan trio of U.S. Senate lawmakers on Thursday introduced a bill that would require banks and other mortgage lenders to respond to prospective short sale homebuyers within 75 days, expediting the process for underwater homeowners who are struggling to unload their properties.
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February 22, 2012
Watchdog Chides FHFA Over $100M Fannie Legal Fees
A federal watchdog agency on Wednesday expressed concern over mounting legal fees reaching $100 million in taxpayer money used to defend ex-Fannie Mae executives facing securities fraud allegations.
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February 22, 2012
Chubb Doesn't Owe Starwood $10M In Defense Costs: Atty
An attorney for a Chubb Corp. affiliate told a New York state appeals court Wednesday that the insurer shouldn't have to pay Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc.'s defense costs for a lawsuit stemming from construction cost overruns at a Florida hotel.
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February 22, 2012
Sealink Hits BofA, Citi, Others With $949M RMBS Claims
Irish financial firm Sealink Funding Ltd. on Tuesday hit a group of big banks including the Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC and Citigroup Inc. with a summons claiming they misrepresented the credit ratings of $949 million worth of investments in residential mortgage-backed securities.
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February 22, 2012
Gibson Dunn Bags Skadden Real Estate Partner For NY Office
A veteran commercial real estate attorney formerly with Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP has joined Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP as a partner in the firm's New York office, Gibson Dunn announced Wednesday.
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February 22, 2012
NY Loft Developers Face Claims Of Mezz Loan Default
The developers of New York's Artisan Lofts, a 16-story condominium complex in downtown Manhattan, were hit with a lawsuit on Wednesday over allegations that they defaulted on a $16 million mezzanine loan used to help finance the conversion of the property from an office building.
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February 22, 2012
Q&A With Kleinberg Kaplan's Ross Yustein
The demand for housing and office space is inherently tied to the performance of the economy, but that aspect of risk isn’t currently present in the loan rating process or the appraisal process, says Ross Yustein, chairman of Kleinberg Kaplan Wolff & Cohen PC's national real estate practice.
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February 22, 2012
German Bank Takes RBS To Court Over $71M In RMBS
German bank Landesbank Baden-Wurttemberg sued Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC and affiliated entities in New York state court Tuesday over alleged misrepresentations connected to the securitization and sale of $71 million in residential mortgage-backed securities.
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February 22, 2012
GE Trust Puts 2 Chicago Office Towers Up For Sale
A pension trust managed by GE Asset Management Inc. is looking to sell its ownership interest of more than 1.1 million square feet in two Class B office towers in downtown Chicago, the broker running the sale said Wednesday.
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February 22, 2012
Office REIT Seeks Unpaid Rent From LA Law Firm
Los Angeles litigation boutique Iverson Yoakum Papiano & Hatch LLP was hit with a complaint Friday in California court alleging it owes $167,500 in unpaid rent at the downtown Los Angeles US Bank Tower.
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February 22, 2012
Suit Says Broker DLA Duped Elderly In $300M REIT Sales
New York-based brokerage firm David Lerner Associates Inc. was hit with a putative class action Tuesday for allegedly misleading elderly and unsophisticated clients into buying more than $300 million worth of securities from two real estate investment trusts.
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February 21, 2012
8th Circ. Revives Best Buy Suit Over DDR Mall Leases
The Eighth Circuit on Tuesday affirmed a ruling that Developers Diversified Realty Corp. affiliates violated leases with Best Buy Stores LP by self-insuring part of their shopping centers' liability coverage, but said further litigation is needed to determine their exact liability.
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February 21, 2012
Borrowers, Quicken Spar Over RESPA Reach In High Court
A lawyer for a potential class of mortgage borrowers urged the Supreme Court in oral arguments Tuesday to find that the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act barred Quicken Loans Inc. and other lenders from collecting unearned fees, even if they weren’t shared with another party.
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February 21, 2012
LA County OKs Permits For Santa Clarita Development
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved several zoning recommendations and conditional use permits to allow Newhall Land Development Inc. to begin the first phase of its 12,000-acre megadevelopment in Santa Clarita, Calif.
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February 21, 2012
BlackRock Considers Sale Of $504M Aussie Property Trust
Money management giant BlackRock Inc. said on Tuesday that it is considering selling off one of its Australian property trusts, worth about 468 million Australian dollars ($504 million), for failing to meet industry benchmarks over the last three years.
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February 21, 2012
Morgan Keegan To Pay Sports Agent In Bond Investment Case
A Financial Industry Regulatory Authority panel on Friday awarded the co-founder of a prominent sports agency — whose client roster includes quarterback Tim Tebow — $400,000 over allegations that Morgan Keegan & Co. Inc. deceptively spurred investments in bond funds laden with mortgage-backed securities.
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February 21, 2012
FHFA Lays Out Plan To Cut Down Fannie, Freddie
The Federal Housing Finance Agency said in a report to Congress on Tuesday that it wants to develop a unified mortgage-packaging system that can outlive both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as part of a broader strategic plan to reduce the mortgage giants' presence in the market.
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February 21, 2012
Nelson Mullins Reels in DLA Piper Real Estate Partner
Corporate law firm Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP has enticed a real estate development expert from DLA Piper to join its Atlanta offices as a new partner, the firm announced Tuesday.
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February 21, 2012
Receiver Appointed In NY Office Building Foreclosure Suit
A New York state judge on Friday appointed a receiver for a 12-story downtown Manhattan office building, declining to dismiss East West Bank's foreclosure suit against its owners, who are allegedly in default on a $35 million mortgage.
Expert Analysis
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In Calif., Not All Appellate Costs Are Created Equal
In light of the California Supreme Court ruling in Rossa v. D.L. Falk Construction Inc., if your client must borrow funds in conjunction with obtaining a bond to stay enforcement because it either cannot afford to bond itself or provide the necessary collateral without financing, it cannot recover the incurred interest — even after a win in the appellate courts, says David Berkley of Robins Kaplan Miller & Ciresi LLP.
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5 Tips For Distressed CRE Borrowers
The owner of a distressed commercial real estate project must do its homework before entering into workout negotiations with its lender, focusing on five key areas, say Richard Spore and Robert McDaniel of Bass Berry & Sims PLC.
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Review: Recent Securities Litigation, Rising Trends
While credit crisis-related litigation continued in 2011, it has extended beyond the securities class action realm, as evidenced by a recent surge in mortgage-backed securities actions. Another trend has been the increase in M&A-related securities litigation, something we expect to continue in the coming year, say attorneys with Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP.
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Law School, Meet Litigation PR ...
The single most important thing law schools can do to manage their reputations in the face of litigation is apply the lessons learned from Wall Street during the recent financial crisis and strive for transparency in all communications. One need only look to Goldman Sachs’ woes or the struggles of Jon Corzine’s MF Global as examples of the catastrophic results of a campaign based on anything but complete honesty, says Spencer Baretz of Hellerman Baretz Communications.
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Chinese Property — Bubble Trouble?
The view that China’s red hot property market is in for a severe correction has been fueling fears of a hard landing for the entire economy. Why all the doom and gloom? Perhaps because Western speculators have billions riding on a bet that China’s economy will sour, says Ian Devereux of Stephenson Harwood.
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Implications Of Magner On The Loose
It is possible that, due in part to Magner v. Gallagher being pulled from the U.S. Supreme Court docket, select district and circuit courts will be inclined to restrict disparate impact theory in the Fair Housing Act and Equal Credit Opportunity Act context, thus setting up an opportunity for the Supreme Court to revisit the issue, say Stephen Harvey and Matthew Silver of Pepper Hamilton LLP.
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The Wide-Ranging Applications Of Calif. Anti-SLAPP Law
Although there are a number of subject matters to which California's anti-strategic lawsuits against public participation statute has been applied in the last few years, it is not always obvious whether a newly filed complaint can be targeted with such a motion, say Jeremy Rosen and Josephine Mason of Horvitz & Levy LLP.
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Case Study: Chapman Law Firm V. US
The application of the contra proferentem doctrine in a False Claims Act case should not be surprising, but it is significant in Chapman Law Firm LPA v. U.S. because the case makes clear that, in certain FCA cases, fraud claims cannot rest on facially ambiguous contract provisions, say Douglas Baruch and John Boese of Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson LLP.
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Has LaSalle Delayed Economic Recovery?
Bankruptcy filings — especially Chapter 11s — significantly underrepresent the amount of distress in the market, especially in the mid-market. Why is that? Here’s one theory: The U.S. Supreme Court's 1999 decision in Bank of America National Trust and Savings Association v. 203 North LaSalle Street Partnership has dramatically changed Chapter 11 practice, says Bobby Guy of Frost Brown Todd LLC.
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Spotlight On Intercreditor Agreements In Bankruptcy
Some recent cases illustrate that intercreditor agreements are still not iron-clad in bankruptcy, and that courts remain willing to overlook the express terms of such agreements in the interests of achieving an equitable solution for all the stakeholders in a bankruptcy proceeding, say Debra Koker and William McMahon of Choate Hall & Stewart LLP.