Try our Advanced Search for more refined results
Bankruptcy
-
May 28, 2024
Ex-NRA CFO Settles NY AG Suit Before Phase-Two Trial
The National Rifle Association's former chief financial officer has reached a settlement with the New York attorney general's office ahead of the second phase of a trial over claims the group and its executives misused donor money, among other alleged misconduct.
-
May 28, 2024
Snubbed ConvergeOne Creditors Appeal Ch. 11 Plan
A group of ConvergeOne lenders that claim the information technology company's reorganization plan unfairly advantages rival creditors has appealed a Texas bankruptcy judge's recent ruling approving the Chapter 11 deal, asking a district court to stay the decision while it challenges what it called an "exclusive" rights offering underlying the plan.
-
May 28, 2024
Beasley Allen, J&J Trade Barbs Over DQ Bid In Talc Litigation
Johnson & Johnson and the Beasley Allen Law Firm have accused each other by turns of "gamesmanship" and "unscrupulous conduct" in New Jersey courts in a fight over whether the firm should be disqualified from talcum powder litigation for allegedly collaborating in secret with a former J&J outside counsel.
-
May 28, 2024
Legal Lenders Can't Avoid Hurricane Ads Suit, Plaintiff Argues
Funding companies that lent $20 million to a Texas law firm accused of using it to deceptively solicit hurricane victims can't escape liability by claiming they didn't know how attorneys were using the money or "simply because they don't have offices in the state," according to a Louisiana woman at the forefront of a putative class action.
-
May 28, 2024
FTX Exec Who Acted As Bankman-Fried 'Tool' Gets 7½ Years
A Manhattan federal judge hit cryptocurrency finance expert and former FTX executive Ryan Salame with a 7½-year sentence Tuesday for duping a bank to authorize $1.5 billion of illegal transfers and making fraudulent campaign contributions for the exchange's convicted founder, Sam Bankman-Fried.
-
May 24, 2024
PIMCO Says It Needs To Assess CFPB's Loan Service Deal
Investment management giant PIMCO told a Pennsylvania federal judge on Friday that it needs more time to study a proposed $5 million settlement between the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a Pennsylvania student loan servicer and multiple student loan trusts, saying its funds are invested in the trusts and may need to consent to the deal.
-
May 24, 2024
Biden's Judicial Impact And What's Left On The Wish List
President Joe Biden secured confirmation of his 200th federal judge Wednesday and has transformed the judiciary by picking more women and people of color than any other president. But the upcoming election season could derail his hopes of confirming many more judges.
-
May 24, 2024
Off The Bench: NCAA Settles House NIL Class Action
In this week’s Off the Bench, the NCAA settles its court dispute with hundreds of thousands of athletes over name, image and likeness compensation, NFL rookie Marvin Harrison Jr. is taken to court over an endorsement contract, and former Super Bowl champion Antonio Brown’s post-career life is burdened further by bankruptcy. If you were sidelined this week, Law360 is here to catch you up on the sports and betting stories that had our readers talking.
-
May 24, 2024
Exiled Chinese Businessman Is No $1B Fraudster, Jury Told
Exiled Chinese businessman and purported billionaire Guo Wengui ran legitimate companies in support of a broad movement that opposed the Chinese Communist Party, his attorney told a Manhattan federal jury Friday, rather than what prosecutors say was a multifaceted $1 billion fraud.
-
May 24, 2024
Weinstein Atty Trying To Chill Retrial Testimony, DA Says
The Manhattan District Attorney's Office has argued that a lawyer for Harvey Weinstein violated ethics rules by publicly accusing one of the movie mogul's alleged rape victims of perjury in an "obvious" attempt to dissuade her from testifying again at an upcoming retrial.
-
May 24, 2024
Biden Urges 1st Circ. To Find Debt Cap Challenge Moot
The Biden administration asked the First Circuit to affirm a finding that a government workers' union lacks standing to challenge the debt ceiling's constitutionality and that its case was further rendered moot by passage of a deal to suspend the spending limit until January.
-
May 24, 2024
UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London
This past week in London has seen an IT engineer seek permission to search a landfill hiding a hard drive supposedly storing millions of pounds in bitcoin, Glencore take on legal action by American Century Investments, gold payment app Glint bring a breach of duty claim against FRP Advisory, and an ongoing dispute between a solicitor and the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.
-
May 23, 2024
FTX Judge Declines To Undo Ch. 11 Digital Claim Estimation
The judge overseeing the Chapter 11 case of cryptocurrency exchange FTX Trading Ltd. on Thursday denied a request to vacate an earlier ruling allowing the debtor to estimate the claims of creditors holding digital assets based on their petition date value, saying the party seeking to undo the order had not provided any new evidence to justify the action.
-
May 23, 2024
Ex-Judge Pushed False Narrative On Atty Romance, Firm Says
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David R. Jones of Texas, who resigned last year after his secret relationship with a Jackson Walker LLP partner was revealed, attempted to head off rumors about the relationship by asking the firm to file a false, partial disclosure in 2022, the firm alleged.
-
May 23, 2024
Houston Law Firm Wants To DQ Creditors' Counsel In Ch. 11
Troubled MMA Law Firm PLLC is seeking to stop another firm from representing its bankruptcy creditors, arguing that MMA's principal had previously spoken with the other firm as a prospective client and had shared confidential information that now could be used against his firm.
-
May 23, 2024
DC Judge Bars Giuliani From Defaming Ga. Poll Workers
A D.C. federal judge has entered an injunction barring Rudy Giuliani from repeating lies that two Georgia poll workers meddled with the 2020 presidential election, resolving a second lawsuit the election workers launched after securing a $146 million judgment against the former New York City mayor.
-
May 23, 2024
J&J Loses Expedited Bid For Beasley Allen Docs In Talc MDL
Johnson & Johnson has lost its bid in New Jersey federal court to have the Beasley Allen Law Firm quickly produce documents related to what J&J said seems to be an "intentional effort" by the firm to "bias the vote" against a proposed $6.5 billion reorganization plan for its talc subsidiary.
-
May 23, 2024
Jackson Lewis Questions Role In Wage Suit After Ch. 11
Jackson Lewis PC attorneys were unsure if they were able to keep representing more than a dozen Pennsylvania nursing homes as an unpaid-wage case approaches a critical deadline, telling a federal court during a conference Thursday that the Bankruptcy Code suspended their service to a group of defendants who filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier in May.
-
May 23, 2024
Alex Jones Atty Escapes Suspension, For Now
The Connecticut Appellate Court on Thursday threw out the six-month suspension of Norm Pattis, the lead attorney in Infowars host Alex Jones' Sandy Hook Elementary School defamation trial, ordering new proceedings against the attorney for supervising the transmission of the victims' confidential records to other Jones lawyers.
-
May 22, 2024
Salesforce Gets Texas Judge To Move Patent Suit To California
For at least the second time in a week, a federal judge in Austin, Texas, has explained why he has shipped a patent lawsuit from his court to the Northern District of California — this time in a case brought by a bankrupt startup against one of Salesforce's brands.
-
May 22, 2024
Michael Best Accused Of Malpractice In Startup's Restructure
Michael Best & Friedrich LLP, one of its partners and one of its former attorneys are accused of mishandling a technology startup's reorganization, jeopardizing tax benefits for its founders, according to a legal malpractice lawsuit filed in Illinois state court.
-
May 22, 2024
Cancer Patients Target J&J Talc Unit's Asset Shuffles
Cancer patients who have sued Johnson & Johnson alleging that its talcum powder caused their illness alleged Wednesday that the company has tried to intentionally prevent tort victims from getting their day in court through a scheme of fraudulent corporate transactions.
-
May 22, 2024
EB-5 Investors Say Developers' $150K Shouldn't Go To Attys
Chinese investors looking to recoup a nearly $40 million investment in failed developments urged an Illinois federal court against allowing bankrupt developers to use $150,000 in assets to pay the developers' attorneys, saying the lawyers shouldn't be paid before the investors.
-
May 22, 2024
1st Circ. Affirms UBS Win In Puerto Rico Pension Fight
The First Circuit said public pensioners in Puerto Rico can't advance their claims that UBS Financial Services illegally underwrote $3 billion in bonds, ruling that the island's financial restructuring plan transferred the right to those claims to a special committee.
-
May 22, 2024
Cleaning Products Maker Supply Source Files For Ch. 11
Cleaning products company Supply Source Enterprises has told a Delaware bankruptcy court that it is seeking a sale in Chapter 11 to deal with $180 million in debt after overestimating the post-pandemic market for cleaning products.
Expert Analysis
-
Strategic Succession Planning At Law Firms Is Crucial
Senior partners' reluctance to retire, the rise of the nonequity partner tier and generational differences in expectations are all contributing to an increasing number of departures from BigLaw, making it imperative for firms to encourage retirement among senior ranks and provide clearer leadership pathways to junior attorneys, says Laura Leopard at Leopard Solutions.
-
Justices Could Use Purdue To Resolve Related Circuit Split
The U.S. Supreme Court will soon hear Harrington v. Purdue Pharma to determine the validity of nonconsensual third-party releases in bankruptcy, but justices should also take the opportunity to resolve a related circuit split over the constitutional authority of bankruptcy judges to issue final rulings on such releases, says Benjamin Feder at Kelley Drye.
-
Feds' Long-Term Debt Proposal Could Be Costly For US Banks
Federal banking regulators recently released a proposal for long-term debt requirements for certain U.S. banking organizations, which would significantly increase the cost of capital for most covered organizations, and the burden would be exacerbated by other factors in the current lending environment, say Matthew Bisanz and Anna Pinedo at Mayer Brown.
-
Maximizing Law Firm Profitability In Uncertain Times
As threats of an economic downturn loom, firms can boost profits by embracing the power of bottom-line management and creating an ecosystem where strategic financial oversight and robust timekeeping practices meet evolved client relations, says Shireen Hilal at Maior Strategic Consulting.
-
USW Ruling Highlights Successor Liability In Bankruptcy Sale
A Delaware federal court's recent decision in United Steelworkers v. Braeburn is important for potential asset purchasers in Section 363 bankruptcy sales as it found the purchaser was subject to obligations under the National Labor Relations Act notwithstanding language in the sale approval order transferring the debtor's assets free and clear of successor liability, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.
-
5th Circ. Ruling Reminds Attys That CBP Can Search Devices
The Fifth Circuit’s recent Malik v. Department of Homeland Security decision adds to the chorus of federal courts holding that border agents don’t need a warrant to search travelers’ electronic devices, so attorneys should consider certain special precautions to secure privileged information when reentering the U.S., says Jennifer Freel at Jackson Walker.
-
Avoiding The Ethical Pitfalls Of Crowdfunded Legal Fees
The crowdfunding of legal fees has become increasingly common, providing a new way for people to afford legal services, but attorneys who accept crowdsourced funds must remember several key ethical obligations to mitigate their risks, say Hilary Gerzhoy and Julienne Pasichow at HWG.
-
Ch. 12 Ruling Is A Helpful Addition To Interest Rate Case Law
In its recent In re: Topp ruling, the Eighth Circuit addressed the question of which rate of interest debtors should pay under a bankruptcy plan, showing that the choice of interest rate plan is a factual issue subject to appellate review for clear error, and not a legal issue subject to de novo review, says Donald Swanson at Koley Jessen.
-
Section 363 Ruling Lines Up With Avoidance Action Precedent
While it is safe to say that avoidance actions in bankruptcy cases are the exception, not the rule, when selling assets in a Section 363 sale, the Eighth Circuit’s recent ruling in Simply Essentials’ Chapter 5 case reveals uniformity among courts that have considered the issue, says Daniel Lowenthal at Patterson Belknap.
-
What Large Language Models Mean For Document Review
Courts often subject parties using technology assisted review to greater scrutiny than parties conducting linear, manual document review, so parties using large language models for document review should expect even more attention, along with a corresponding need for quality control and validation, say attorneys at Sidley.
-
Series
Participating In Living History Makes Me A Better Lawyer
My role as a baron in a living history group, and my work as volunteer corporate counsel for a book series fan association, has provided me several opportunities to practice in unexpected areas of law — opening doors to experiences that have nurtured invaluable personal and professional skills, says Matthew Parker at the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services.
-
How Attys Can Weather The Next Disaster Litigation Crisis
On the heels of a number of damage catastrophes and ensuing litigation this summer alone, attorneys must recognize that it’s a matter of when, not if, the next disaster — whether natural or artificial — will strike, and formulate plans to minimize risks, including consolidating significant claims and taking remedial measures, says Mark Goldberg at Cosmich Simmons.
-
Opinion
Private Equity Owners Can Remedy Law Firms' Agency Issues
Nonlawyer, private-equity ownership of law firms can benefit shareholders and others vulnerable to governance issues such as disparate interests, and can in turn help resolve agency problems, says Michael Di Gennaro at The Law Practice Exchange.
-
Opinion
Proving Causation Is Key To Fairness And Justice
Ongoing litigation over talc and acetaminophen highlights the important legal distinction between correlation and causation — and is a reminder that, while individuals should be compensated for injuries, blameless parties should be protected from unjust claims, say Drew Kershen at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, and Henry Miller at the American Council on Science and Health.
-
Potential WeWork Bankruptcy May Disrupt Coworking Spaces
If WeWork files for bankruptcy, as hinted at in its recent quarterly earnings report, landlords may struggle to take over management of WeWork's coworking spaces, but the coworking industry as a whole is showing some promise in adapting to the market's evolving post-pandemic office needs, says Ann Chandler at Hall Estill.