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Real Estate
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May 21, 2013
Texas Beach Access Bill Clears State Legislature
The Texas Senate on Tuesday passed legislation that would temporarily allow residents to cross privately owned property when necessary to access the state’s beaches following a hurricane, in an effort to limit the impact of a Texas Supreme Court ruling that restricts public beach easements.
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May 21, 2013
Mayer Brown Snags Real Estate Finance Pro From Dechert
Mayer Brown LLP said Friday it had picked up a Dechert LLP attorney with expertise in real estate finance and securities law to boost its banking and finance practice in Charlotte, N.C.
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May 21, 2013
Commerce Bank Founder Loses Bid For $17.2M Severance
A New Jersey federal jury on Tuesday sided with Commerce Bancorp in a breach of contract suit, ruling the bank was legally prohibited from paying its founder and former CEO Vernon W. Hill II a $17.2 million severance due to federal regulations governing "golden parachute" payments.
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May 21, 2013
Tech Co. Faces Sanctions In Patent Row With Simon Property
A Wisconsin federal judge on Tuesday ordered NorthMobileTech LLC to pay roughly $368,500 in sanctions for pursuing an unsuccessful patent enforcement suit that was allegedly fraught with misconduct against real estate giant Simon Property Group Inc.
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May 21, 2013
Developers That Razed Historic Beastie Boy Home Sued For $6M
Mortgage brokerage Silo Capital LLC on Tuesday sued the developers of two Manhattan buildings in New York court, arguing they violated the terms of a $6.2 million mortgage by demolishing one of the buildings, a historic gay rights site and the former home of Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz.
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May 21, 2013
Real Estate Deals Shift To Secondary Markets
Commercial real estate investors are getting fed up with low returns on their safe bets in markets like New York, Washington and San Francisco and are turning to value-add opportunities in secondary and tertiary markets, creating more deals for attorneys nationwide.
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May 21, 2013
Tampa Panel Nixes Channelside Project Bid In Surprise Vote
Real estate developers who appeared to have the leading bid to purchase and revamp Tampa's depressed Channelside Bay Plaza said they were “stunned and confused” after the Florida city's Port Authority Board unexpectedly voted to eliminate them from consideration Tuesday.
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May 21, 2013
Fla. Atty Pegged For Stealing Millions Hit With New Suit
Missing Florida foreclosure defense attorney Timothy McCabe, who is under investigation for possibly stealing millions in client funds, was hit Monday with another lawsuit by a disgruntled client who says he's lost over $67,000 he'd placed in trust accounts with McCabe's firm.
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May 21, 2013
Appeals Court Backs RE Mogul In Nursing Home Buyout Row
A New York state appellate court on Tuesday unanimously affirmed decisions in favor of real estate investor Rubin Schron and against Mariner Health Care Inc. and others in a nursing home purchasing dispute, saying the defendants’ new evidence was cumulative and would not have changed the outcomes.
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May 21, 2013
Miami Beach Hotel Owner Can Dump Marriott, Judge Says
A New York state judge said Tuesday that the owner of a boutique Miami Beach hotel can kick out Marriott International Inc. as the swanky hotel's manager, but he stopped short of issuing a stronger, court-ordered heave-ho.
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May 21, 2013
Miami Law Firm Helped Run Ponzi Scheme, Investor Says
A Wisconsin man sued Miami attorney Jeffrey Tew and his firm Tew Cardenas LLP in Florida state court Thursday, claiming they helped a businessman set up and run what was effectively a Ponzi scheme based on fraudulent real estate investments in Costa Rica.
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May 21, 2013
Ill. Pension Fund Slaps AIG With Securities Fraud Suit
An Illinois pension fund on Friday sued American International Group Inc. and current and former executives in New York federal court, saying the insurer schemed to artificially inflate the value of its securities while concealing a risky portfolio that led to a 97 percent drop in AIG's stock price.
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May 21, 2013
$6.4B Philly Airport Expansion Inches Toward Takeoff
The Philadelphia City Planning Commission on Tuesday signed off on two land acquisition bills key to a $6.4 billion expansion of Philadelphia International Airport, paving the way for a full vote by the City Council.
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May 21, 2013
DOJ Slams S&P Bid To Toss Inflated RMBS Ratings Suit
The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday hit back at Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC’s bid to dismiss a suit over allegedly flawed residential mortgage-backed securities ratings issued before the financial crisis, telling a California federal judge it had properly alleged fraud by the ratings firm.
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May 21, 2013
Yahoo To Take 4 Floors At Former NY Times Building
Yahoo Inc. will move its 500 New York employees from several Manhattan offices to four stories at the former New York Times building in connection with its $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr, CEO Marissa Mayer announced at a press conference following the merger announcement Monday.
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May 21, 2013
Nationwide Mortgage Settlement Nets Over $50B In Relief
The five largest U.S. mortgage servicers have provided over $50 billion in relief to over 620,000 homeowners under last year's national mortgage settlement, according to an update released Tuesday by the federal monitor overseeing the settlement.
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May 21, 2013
WaMu Noteholders Can't Join $10B Fight, DC Circ. Says
The D.C. Circuit on Tuesday refused to let a group of Washington Mutual Bank noteholders enter Deutsche Bank AG's $10 billion suit over WaMu's poor-quality mortgages, ruling that their interest in the case was too conditional to justify intervening and that their inclusion could open the floodgates for other creditors.
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May 21, 2013
Winston & Strawn Snags NY Property Pro From Nixon Peabody
The New York office of Winston & Strawn LLP has lured in a real estate deals and financing partner with a broad skill set from the ranks of Nixon Peabody LLP, the firm announced Tuesday.
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May 21, 2013
Republicans Blast CFPB On Qualified Mortgage Standard
Several Republican lawmakers on Tuesday took the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to task, saying the agency’s standard for so-called qualified mortgages under its ability-to-repay mortgage lending rule is not flexible enough and could limit banks’ willingness and ability to lend.
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May 21, 2013
GrayRobinson Lands Ex-Bilzin Sumberg RE Pro In Miami
Florida law firm GrayRobinson PA has landed a real estate, construction and land-use partner from Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod LLP to join its Miami office as a shareholder, the firm announced Tuesday.
Expert Analysis
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Pitfalls For Lenders Redeeming Ala. Property
In First United Security Bank v. McCollum, the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals addressed the rights of a lender that redeems property sold at a tax sale as a result of its borrower’s failure to pay his property taxes. In certain situations, the decision will penalize lenders and awards property owners with a financial windfall, says Jack Kubiszyn of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP.
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Calif.'s Subcontractor Defense Regime: Order Or Chaos?
With the enactment of Civil Code Section 2782.05, the California Legislature has created a new regime to govern a subcontractor's duty to defend a general contractor or construction manager on most nonresidential projects. While this new regime appears intended to benefit construction participants, its lack of guidance will likely result in disagreements and litigation among the participants, say attorneys with Jones Day.
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Rise Of The Machines — Predictive Coding Goes Mainstream
The pros of using predictive coding far outweigh the cons. Given the heavy pressure on law firms and in-house counsel to reduce discovery costs, as well as the Justice Department's recent stance on the subject, it appears predictive coding will continue to emerge from the obscure world of legal technology to the mainstream of legal practice, say Michael Moscato and Myles Bartley of Curtis Mallet-Prevost Colt & Mosle LLP.
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Know Your Risks Before Going Green In Construction
Although there are benefits to “going green” in the construction, development and operation of buildings, there are also risks unique to green building that will test the boundaries of coverage under typical liability insurance policies, say attorneys with Sedgwick LLP.
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4th Circ. Weighs In On Bona Fide Purchaser Defense
The Fourth Circuit recently issued a ruling in PCS Nitrogen Inc. v. Ashley II of Charleston that may limit the availability of the bona fide prospective purchaser defense. By narrowly construing one of the elements of the BFPP defense, the court has underscored the importance of strict compliance with all requirements of the defense, say attorneys with K&L Gates LLP.
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The Who, What And Why Of Public-Private Partnerships
Public-private partnerships have been used in a wide range of sectors to provide public services, from power plants and railroads to hospitals and sanitation plants. Yet there are a variety of potential contractual arrangements and the financing of a PPP can be complex, say Maryam Khosharay and Herbert Glaser of Haynes and Boone LLP.
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Renovated: Fla. Rules On Design Professional Liability
A new Florida law will effectively permit business entities providing professional services to limit by contract the liability of their individual employees or agents. Attorneys with design professional clients — including architects, interior designers, landscape architects, engineers, surveyors and geologists — should expect requests for limitation of liability provisions in such contracts beginning July 1, 2013, say Keith Ramsey and Monte Starr of Holland & Knight LLP.
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E-Discovery In The Cloud: Who Can Get Your Data?
Many lawyers are asking whether placing electronically stored information in the cloud could inadvertently waive the attorney-client privilege and whether the government or a civil litigant could obtain ESI directly from a cloud service provider. In answering these questions, there are a number of aspects of the cloud worth considering, say Timothy Broas and Matthew Saxon of Winston & Strawn LLP.
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Commercial Leasing Recovery Remains Uneven
In addressing trends in the current commercial leasing market, several patterns are apparent. For one, many property owners that have been able to survive foreclosure now face the specter of refinancing their property in the mixing bowl of loss of market value, lenders requiring a lower loan-to-value ratio, and reduced cash flow from the property, says Barry Katz of Arnstein & Lehr LLP.
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5 Reasons For Optimism In The Venture Capital Community
Not every company can be the next Facebook. But thankfully, for many startups, generating one billion users is not the end goal, nor should it be. Enter “narrowcasting” — one of a few reasons to be optimistic about venture capital, despite the first quarter of 2013 being the slowest for fundraising since 2002, says David Kaufman of Thompson Coburn LLP.