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Real Estate
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May 14, 2013
Goldman Dodges Insurer's $120M CDO Claims On Appeal
A New York state appeals court on Tuesday tossed ACA Financial Guaranty Corp.'s $120 million action targeting Goldman Sachs over a mortgage-backed securities transaction gone sour, finding Goldman never guaranteed that an outside hedge fund was taking an equity position favorable to ACA.
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May 14, 2013
Merrill Can't Ax Fraud Claims In $60M Magnetar MBS Suit
A German bank can press ahead with allegations Bank of America Corp.'s Merrill Lynch lied about the role hedge fund Magnetar Capital LLC had in shaping a $60 million mortgage-backed transaction, a New York state judge ruled Tuesday.
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May 14, 2013
Cozen Nabs Pair From McCarter & English, Klehr Harrison
Cozen O’Connor has landed two partners from Klehr Harrison Harvey Branzburg LLP and McCarter & English LLP who specialize in private equity, mergers and acquisitions, real estate and commercial financing to join its Philadelphia office, the firm announced Monday.
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May 14, 2013
NJ Blocked From Seizing $140M In Housing Funds
A New Jersey appeals court on Monday blocked the state from taking some $140 million from municipal affordable housing trust funds after fair housing advocates argued the measure would siphon money from the state’s low-income and disabled residents and Hurricane Sandy victims.
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May 14, 2013
S&P Prez Tells SEC To Ditch Industry Reform Plan
Standard & Poor’s, the target of a U.S. Department of Justice fraud suit over its handling of mortgage-backed bonds before the financial crisis, opposes broad efforts to reform the credit rating industry, the firm’s president said Tuesday at a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission roundtable.
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May 14, 2013
ResCap Keeps Examiner Report Sealed With Ally Deal
Residential Capital LLC has reached a deal with Ally Financial Inc. to end potential creditor claims and made significant progress toward a reorganization plan, allowing it to keep an independent examiner's report under seal until later this month, according to statements made Tuesday.
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May 13, 2013
Morgans Hotel Recap Should Be Blocked, Judge Hears
A dissident Morgans Hotel Group Co. director on Monday asked a Delaware Chancery judge to hold up a planned debt-for-equity swap between the company and private equity firm Yucaipa Cos. LLC, claiming his fellow board members manipulated the deal for their own ends.
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May 13, 2013
Chicago Trump Tower Reneged On Condo Deals, Jury Hears
A lawyer for a woman who inked purchase agreements for two hotel condominium units in Chicago's Trump International Hotel and Tower told a federal jury Monday that Donald Trump's companies unfairly reneged on their representation that unit buyers would hold interests in certain hotel facilities and share in their revenues.
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May 13, 2013
Firms, Trump Targeted In $1B Row Over Investment Losses
Real estate magnate Donald Trump and big law firms including Nixon Peabody LLP and Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP were targeted Monday in a $1 billion battle by Holocaust survivors and others over an investment scheme by the former promoter of a failed Trump hotel in Florida.
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May 13, 2013
MSR Seeks lP Asset Sale While Dodging Fund Suit In Ch. 11
Paulson & Co.’s real estate investment trust MSR Hotels & Resorts Inc. said Monday it plans to use its Chapter 11 case to escape an alternative investment fund's multimillion-dollar lawsuit, so that it can move forward with a planned intellectual property asset sale.
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May 13, 2013
Athenahealth Puts Up $168M For Harvard Office Complex
Medical administrative service company Athenahealth Inc. closed on a deal Friday to purchase an 11-building complex in Massachusetts, which includes its own headquarters, from Harvard University for $168.5 million — securing room for the cloud-based technology firm's fast growth.
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May 13, 2013
Ex-Morgan Stanley Unit Can't Duck Mortgage Modification Suit
A Pennsylvania federal judge on Thursday refused to dismiss a putative class action alleging a former Morgan Stanley subsidiary refused to permanently execute mortgage modification plans, ruling there was sufficient evidence that the company failed to follow a federal mortgage relief program's guidelines.
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May 13, 2013
CPC Wants $1M In Legal Fees From Domino Site JV Partner
Community Preservation Corp. asked a New York state judge on Monday to order its joint venture partner in Brooklyn's Domino Sugar factory site to pay $1 million in legal fees for three lawsuits that sprang up from CPC's $185 million sale of the site last year.
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May 13, 2013
Minor Notice Errors Don't Bar RE Projects, NJ Justices Rule
If it doesn't steer members of the public in the wrong direction, a minor error in the hearing notice that New Jersey developers must issue when their projects come up for municipal review shouldn't doom an application's approval, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday.
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May 13, 2013
NJ Borough Asks High Court To Alter Payouts In Land Seizures
An attorney for a New Jersey borough on Monday urged the New Jersey Supreme Court to reconsider how homeowners should be compensated when the government seizes a portion of their land for a public works project, as the construction of a protective dune system potentially hangs in the balance.
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May 13, 2013
Wells Fargo, QBE Reach $19M Force-Placed Insurance Deal
Wells Fargo Bank NA, QBE Specialty Insurance Co. and a class of Florida homeowners have reached a settlement over allegations the companies pushed overpriced property insurance and received kickbacks, agreeing to pay up to $19.25 million to class members, according to court documents filed Monday.
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May 13, 2013
Quik Park Wants $2M For Sandy Coverage From Lexington
Several dozen Manhattan-based Quik Park franchises lodged a suit in New York state court Thursday demanding that Lexington Insurance Co. cough up $2 million to cover property damage and business losses from Superstorm Sandy.
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May 13, 2013
RE Mogul Swig Must Refile Docs In Fight With Wall St. Investors
Real estate developer Kent Swig's affiliates, who are battling with the majority owners of a Wall Street skyscraper, must refile court papers after making it appear that there was no evidence Swig had embezzled the building's operating funds, a New York state judge said Monday.
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May 13, 2013
2nd Circ. Won't Free Ex-FBI Agent Who Hid Affair With Source
The Second Circuit on Monday upheld a former FBI agent’s conviction and one-year sentence on charges he lied about an affair with a source in a mortgage fraud investigation, ruling that prosecutors did not target him because of his race.
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May 13, 2013
PNC Can't Dodge Suit Over 'Banker's Interest' Calculation
A California magistrate judge on Friday kept alive a putative class action brought by an apartment building owner alleging PNC Bank NA used an unfair calculation of the so-called banker's interest rate it charged borrowers that wrongfully hiked rates on commercial loans.
Expert Analysis
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7 Reasons To Do Pro Bono Work
Research shows that helping others and cultivating social relationships makes us happier and that generous people live longer, healthier lives. These are just a few of the countless reasons to create time in our busy schedules to do pro bono and charitable work this year, says Anne Brafford of Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP.
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Takeaways On Expert Opinion From Exxon Mobil V. Albright
In Exxon Mobil Corporation v. Albright, the Court of Appeals of Maryland recently reversed significant portions of a jury verdict in favor of plaintiffs, rejecting their expert witness testimony. This decision emphasizes the importance of the courts only admitting into evidence an expert’s opinion that is helpful to the jury and supported by a sound basis of fact, says Christopher Madaio of Miles & Stockbridge PC.
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Split On Calif. Code Upgrade Coverage Remains Unresolved
In Reichert v. State Farm General Insurance Co., California’s Fourth Appellate District Court recently interpreted the law and ordinance exclusion to preclude coverage when the enforcement of a law causes the loss. The court did not, however, resolve the current conflict in code upgrade coverage, leaving it up to another court to determine the split of authority, say attorneys with Robins Kaplan Miller & Ciresi LLP.
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We Need More Diversity In Mediation
In our increasingly interconnected global marketplace, U.S. corporations could well profit from engaging alternative dispute resolution practitioners who are familiar with these diverse cultures. But problems in the development and retention of minority neutrals exist, even as the U.S. population grows more and more diverse, says Ariel Belen, a panelist with JAMS and former associate justice of the New York Supreme Court.
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Under The Hood Of In Re Motors Liquidation
The In re Motors Liquidation Company outcome is favorable for all creditors because they do not need to monitor the public financing statement records for unauthorized or erroneous filings. It is also instructive because of the analysis used by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York to determine whether or not such a required authorization has been given by the secured party of record, say attorneys with Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP.
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E-Discovery Trends: Looking Back To Move Forward
E-discovery decisions throughout 2012 and early 2013 have shed some light on the issues, but they have also raised new questions and conflicting standards regarding how courts address litigation holds, cooperation with opposing counsel, and new technologies, say attorneys with Paul Hastings LLP.
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Finally, 8 Factors Governing FIRREA Civil Penalty Awards
The recent decision by the Central District of California in United States v. Menendez may finally give the government and FIRREA defendants a framework for their discussions. The ruling, in a small civil bank fraud case brought against an individual, appears to be the first judicial decision setting forth the factors that a court should consider when imposing civil penalties under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act, say attorneys with BuckleySandler LLP.
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A New Duty Of Care Owed To Calif. Borrowers
In light of the California Court of Appeal opinion in Jolley v. Chase Home Finance LLC, borrowers embroiled in disputes with their lenders with respect to the lenders’ performance under a construction loan agreement — especially where the bank representatives indicated the likelihood of a loan modification — may be able to state a cause of action for negligence, misrepresentation and/or promissory estoppel, says Andrew Howard of Robins Kaplan Miller & Ciresi LLP.
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5th Circ. Stirs The Artificial Impairment Pot
The Fifth Circuit decision in Western Real Estate Equities LLC v. Village at Camp Bowie I LP may renew debate among the circuit courts and bankruptcy courts regarding how far a plan proponent may go in engineering an impaired class of creditors to cram down a plan, say Luc Despins and Robert Winter of Paul Hastings LLP.
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Riverisland Erodes Calif. 'Parol Evidence Rule'
Lenders and counsel will likely devise a number of provisions making it difficult for borrowers to be believed in court if they come up with claims of fraud contrary to the terms of written contracts they have signed. The lesson from the California Supreme Court decision in Riverisland Cold Storage Inc. v. Fresno-Madera Production Credit Association, however, is that doing so at the contract drafting and execution stage is more important than ever, says Perry Mocciaro of Cox Castle & Nicholson LLP.