We know 2015 was a bleak year for coal, oil and natural gas producers, with at least 67 bankruptcy filings. 2016 is not looking much better. Surpluses of coal, oil and natural gas continue to weigh down prices and threaten companies’ balance sheets.
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You operate a law firm in Texas. You are hired by a Utah business trust to represent a friend of the trust’s founder, who is facing criminal charges in New Hampshire. You represent the friend, and for your legal services you are paid $90,000 by the trust.
On Nov. 6, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in Husky International Electronics Inc. v. Daniel Lee Ritz, Jr. and heard oral arguments in the case on March 1, 2016. The issue pending before the Supreme Court concerns whether “actual fraud” under 11 U.S.C.
[1]In a decision that deserves the close attention of secured lenders, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that a bank’s awareness of suspicious facts about the collateral pledged to secure its loan required bank officials to perform a diligent investigation of possible fraud or other wrongdoing by its borrower.
The legal saga of the Wyly brothers continues.
Born in rural Louisiana during the Great Depression, Samuel Wyly and his older brother Charles, Jr., built a fortune from a computer company and later from steakhouses and Michael’s, an arts-and-crafts retail chain. In 2010, however, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) brought a civil enforcement action against the Wylys, alleging that they participated in an elaborate international securities fraud scheme.
In a Jan. 8, 2016, opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reminded secured lenders of their due diligence obligations when choosing to extend credit. In Grede v. Bank of New York Mellon Corp. and Bank of New York (Grede), a panel of the Seventh Circuit held that Bank of New York and its successor, Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, (collectively, the bank) were on inquiry notice of their obligation to investigate the provenance of the collateral used by Sentinel Management Group, Inc. to secure several hundred million dollars in loans made to Sentinel.
In Sikirica v. Wettach,[1] the Third Circuit held that a party seeking to avoid a fraudulent transfer under Pennsylvania’s Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act (PUFTA)[2] bears the burden of persuasion on all elements, including the insolvency of the debtor and the lack of reasonably equivalent value in exchange.
A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent arrangement where an entity makes payments to investors from monies obtained from later investors, not from profits of any underlying business venture. The scheme is a variation of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Charles Ponzi is regarded as the mastermind of the first such scheme.
On Jan. 15, 2016, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Alabama decided In re Moorer, 15-30422-WRS, 2016 WL 199061 (Bankr. M.D. Ala. Jan. 15, 2016), wherein the court allowed the debtor to bifurcate a loan and treat the value of the property as the secured claim,
One element of the bankruptcy process that is frequently confusing to new bankruptcy practitioners and nonbankruptcy lawyers is the U.S. Trustee Program. Although it is not infrequently assumed that the U.S. Trustee Program is part of the judicial branch, the U.S. Trustee is a component of the Department of Justice.
