More Real Estate Coverage

  • January 25, 2024

    Lender Aided $8M Kuwaiti Royal Rip-Off, Judge Finds

    A Maryland federal judge ordered a lender to pay at least $469,990 after finding the company helped further a Baltimore restaurant owner's scheme that bilked $7.8 million from a member of the Kuwaiti royal family.

  • January 24, 2024

    Investors Urge NY Court To Restore RMBS Fraud Claim

    A group of investors in a residential mortgage-backed securities entity asked a New York state appeals court Wednesday to hold one of the project officers liable for concealing negative information about its prospects.

  • January 24, 2024

    Bid To Swap Chevron For An Old Standby Raises Doubts

    Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court debated whether a World War II-era doctrine encouraging courts to strongly consider agency statutory interpretations could replace the court's controversial so-called Chevron doctrine that requires judges to defer to those interpretations if a statute is ambiguous.

  • January 24, 2024

    Iowa Senate Bill Seeks Tax Break For Moveable Structures

    Iowa would prohibit moveable structures that aren't connected to gas, electricity or other utilities and meet other requirements from being assessed and taxed as real property under a bill introduced in the state Senate.

  • January 24, 2024

    Mohawk Council Wants To Withdraw From 1796 Land Dispute

    The Mohawk Nation Council of Chiefs says a recent decision to withdraw from a land settlement agreement with the state of New York over a decadeslong lawsuit involving more than 2,000 acres of illegally purchased land was not easy but was made in the interest of protecting the territorial integrity of the Mohawk Nation.

  • January 23, 2024

    PacifiCorp Owes At Least $62M To 9 Homeowners Hit By Fires

    PacifiCorp must pay at least $62 million in compensatory damages to nine people who fled their homes in a Labor Day 2020 fire outbreak, a Portland, Oregon, jury found Tuesday, with parties confirming the amount could be much higher with the expected addition of punitive damages.

  • January 23, 2024

    ​​​​​​​Ch. 11 Preference Claims Can Be Sold, 5th Circ. Says

    The Fifth Circuit ruled Tuesday that interest in Chapter 11 preference actions, which seek to claw back payments a debtor made to creditors prior to bankruptcy, can be sold as "property of the estate," weighing in on the issue for the first time.

  • January 23, 2024

    Court Will Rethink Tribes' Claims In Railroad Dispute

    An Idaho federal judge has reinstated two Quiet Title Act claims the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of the Fort Hall Reservation lodged against the federal government in a dispute over land once used by a railway, agreeing that a Supreme Court ruling requires the reversal of a prior order dismissing the claims.

  • January 22, 2024

    PacifiCorp Should Pay $45M To 9 Wildfire Victims, Jury Hears

    Nine people who fled their homes during a Labor Day 2020 wildfire outbreak each deserve at least $5 million from the owner of Pacific Power, their lawyers told a Portland, Oregon, jury in closing arguments Monday, while the company said reasonable numbers would be much lower.

  • January 22, 2024

    Iowa County's CO2 Pipeline Rules Are Preempted, Judge Told

    The developer of a proposed interstate carbon dioxide pipeline has told a federal judge that rules restricting its project passed last week in Palo Alto County, Iowa, are preempted by federal law, as the company pointed to a ruling last month blocking two other local ordinances.

  • January 22, 2024

    World Cup Workers' Abuse Claims Are Misdirected, US Co. Says

    Filipino laborers who claimed they were subjected to abusive work and living conditions while helping build facilities for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar aimed their ire in the wrong direction, a U.S. construction company told a Colorado federal judge in a bid to dismiss the suit.

  • January 22, 2024

    Feds Defend Ability To Take Land Into Trust For Alaska Tribes

    The U.S. government is urging an Alaska federal judge to reject the state of Alaska's arguments that the Interior Department's decision to take a 787-square-foot piece of land in downtown Juneau in trust for the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes oversteps its authority or threatens state jurisdiction.

  • January 22, 2024

    Holland & Knight Brings On Greenspoon Public Finance Pros

    A pair of former Greenspoon Marder LLP public finance attorneys who both have about four decades of experience in their practice area have jumped to Holland & Knight LLP, the firm announced Monday.

  • January 19, 2024

    Law360 Names Firms Of The Year

    Eight law firms have earned spots as Law360's Firms of the Year, with 55 Practice Group of the Year awards among them, steering some of the largest deals of 2023 and securing high-profile litigation wins, including at the U.S. Supreme Court.

  • January 19, 2024

    Law360 Names Practice Groups Of The Year

    Law360 would like to congratulate the winners of its Practice Groups of the Year awards for 2023, which honor the attorney teams behind litigation wins and major deals that resonated throughout the legal industry this past year.

  • January 19, 2024

    Property Plays: Thorofare, Greystone, Brennan

    Thorofare Capital has loaned $26 million for a San Diego multifamily property, Greystone has provided $40.3 million for a multifamily property in Indiana and Brennan Investment Group has picked up a 263,000-square-foot Cincinnati industrial building.

  • January 19, 2024

    Insurer Says Wash. Judge Must Alter COVID Coverage Ruling

    A Liberty Mutual unit asked a Washington state judge to alter his ruling of this month that the University of Washington established a plausible claim to recover losses from the COVID-19 pandemic, arguing that the decision ignores key differences among the university's policies. 

  • January 19, 2024

    Army Corps Escapes Ohio River Tugboat Service Suit

    An Ohio federal judge has let the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers out of a construction and asphalt company's suit over an allegedly unauthorized tugboat service on the Ohio River, writing in his opinion that the Corps is not properly a defendant just for owning the land the service is using.

  • January 18, 2024

    Biz, Insurer Settle $10.5M Military School Construction Dispute

    A contractor and its insurer have settled a $10.5 million lawsuit seeking coverage for shoddy construction work on a school on a military base, according to a joint statement Thursday in Maryland federal court.

  • January 18, 2024

    Va. Landlord Charged With Preying On Low-Income Minorities

    A Virginia grand jury has indicted a Hampton-based landlord for an alleged scheme to rake in government housing-assistance payments by exploiting vulnerable African American tenants whom he threatened to evict for late payments using violence and racist remarks.

  • January 18, 2024

    DC Judge Won't DQ Atty In Construction Co. Firing Spat

    A D.C. federal judge has declined to disqualify an attorney from representing a construction company in an employment dispute between the company's two co-founders, finding that the lawyer ceased representing one of the co-founders prior to her retention by the construction firm and therefore no conflict existed.

  • January 18, 2024

    3rd Circ. Preserves $1.8M Jury Award For Resort Shareholder

    The Third Circuit on Thursday upheld a $1.8 million jury award for the estate of a doctor who accused a Costa Rican resort of shorting him on timeshare investment income, reasoning that "record evidence" backed the trial verdict. 

  • January 18, 2024

    Title Co. Says It's Owed Defense In $700K Wire Mishap Suit

    A title company told a Florida federal court that Nationwide unit Scottsdale Indemnity Co. wrongfully refused to cover its defense in a suit over nearly $700,000 in property sale proceeds the company is accused of wiring to a third party instead of the seller.

  • January 18, 2024

    Feds Join AgriBiz In Asking 9th Circ. To Upend Land Swap

    The federal government and a global agribusiness with operations in Idaho have urged the Ninth Circuit to overturn a lower court ruling that favored the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes in their challenge to a U.S. Department of the Interior land transfer for the expansion of a fertilizer plant.

  • January 18, 2024

    Realty Co. Seeks $8.2M For Failed Merger Defense Costs

    A Hartford unit owes over $8.2 million in damages stemming from a merger gone awry between its insured and real estate giant Simon Property Group, the insured said in a complaint removed Thursday to a Delaware federal court, maintaining that it properly exhausted all other limits of coverage.

Expert Analysis

  • IRS Green Energy Tax Credit Notice Provides Needed Clarity

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    Recent IRS guidance clarifying how the government will determine energy community locations for purposes of bonus clean energy tax credits should help resolve risk allocation disagreements among financing parties and parties to merger and acquisition transactions, say Casey August and Paul Gordon at Morgan Lewis.

  • How State Laws Are Taking On Clean Energy Project Protests

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    By enacting legislation that streamlines siting and permitting for large-scale renewable energy infrastructure projects, states like Illinois, New York and California are keeping approval processes out of the reach of "not in my backyard" opponents and increasing the probability of meeting ambitious climate goals, says Bo Mahr at Husch Blackwell.

  • Practical Skills Young Attorneys Must Master To Be Happier

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    For young lawyers, finding happiness on the job — with its competitive nature and high expectations for billable hours — is complicated, but three skills can help them gain confidence, reduce stress and demonstrate their professional value in ways they never imagined, says career counselor Susan Smith Blakely.

  • Evaluating The Legal Standing Of Natural Elements

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    Wednesday's observance of World Water Day invites questions about anthropocentric or ecocentric approaches to the rights of natural elements as thinking shifts about the legal standing of such resources, say Susan Lutzker at Lutzker & Lutzker and Thomas Wallentin at Kunz Wallentin.

  • ABA Opinion Should Help Clarify Which Ethics Rules Apply

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    A recent American Bar Association opinion provides key guidance on interpreting ABA Model Rule 8.5's notoriously complex choice-of-law analysis — and should help lawyers authorized to practice in multiple jurisdictions determine which jurisdiction's ethics rules govern their conduct, say attorneys at HWG.

  • How Crypto-Friendly Bank Failures Will Change Tech Industry

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    The recent failures of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and Silvergate Capital are likely to result in significant shifts in how the global tech industry and its financial partners address legal, compliance, regulatory and business risks, says Erin Bryan at Dorsey & Whitney.

  • 4 Ways To Reboot Your Firm's Stalled Diversity Program

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    Law firms that have failed to see real progress despite years of diversity initiatives can move forward by committing to tackle four often-taboo obstacles that hinder diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, says Steph Maher at Jaffe.

  • What To Expect From A Litigation Finance Industry Recession

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    There's little data on how litigation finance would fare in a recession, but a look at stakeholders' incentives suggests corporate demand for litigation finance would increase in a recessionary environment, while the number of funders could shrink, says Matthew Oxman at LexShares.

  • Insureds Must Prep For Drought-Related Service Interruptions

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    Amid the ongoing U.S. water crisis, corporate policyholders must prepare for the emerging risk of service interruption property damage and time element loss, including through careful examination of their current and renewal property policies, says Micah Skidmore at Haynes Boone.

  • How To Select The Right Arbitrator For A Construction Dispute

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    In construction disputes, selecting an arbitrator is a critical decision with many nuances to consider, as different types of potential panelists all come with their own experiences, views and possible biases, says Edward Gentilcore at Blank Rome.

  • Liquefied Natural Gas Outlook: Industry Under Pressure

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    While last year saw a remarkable turnaround in the liquefied natural gas market, with strong demand for U.S. LNG projects, the industry must now confront problems including increased credit and construction costs, and the possibility of fewer LNG conversions due to higher prices, say Monica Hwang and Silvia Smith at O'Melveny.

  • Bid Protest Spotlight: Lessons For Joint Ventures

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    In this month's bid protest roundup, Alissandra McCann at MoFo examines recent decisions from the U.S. Government Accountability Office and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims of particular significance to joint ventures, concerning past performance evaluation and misrepresentation, and registration in the System for Award Management.

  • Justices Leave Questions Open On Dual-Purpose Atty Advice

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's recent dismissal of In re: Grand Jury on grounds that certiorari was improvidently granted leaves unresolved a circuit split over the proper test for deciding when attorney-client privilege protects a lawyer's advice that has multiple purposes, say Susan Combs and Richard Kiely at Holland & Hart.

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