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REITs: The Challenge of Parking Facilities
The careful negotiation of the rights and responsibilities involved with the operation of parking facilities associated with commercial properties is an often-overlooked component of the acquisition and leasing of those properties. It has been noted that the inadequate resolution of the competing interests between owners, lessors, and lessees of parking facilities can harm the interested parties' businesses and ultimately drive the parties into costly and time-consuming legal battles. Stacy E. Smith, Negotiating Parking Privileges in Commercial Leases: What Every Tenant Should Know. Com. Leasing L. & Strategy, July 2005, at 1. Unfortunately, the presence of a real estate investment trust ('REIT') among the concerned parties adds an additional layer of complexity to an already challenging situation.
As an owner of a parking facility, a REIT's structural and compliance obligations affect whether the REIT operates the facility pursuant to a management agreement with an independent contractor or whether it will lease the parking facility to a third-party operator. Operating the parking facility pursuant to a management agreement with an independent contractor is the preferable method, unless regulatory concerns dictate otherwise. First, the management agreement allows the owner to calibrate more accurately the fee paid to the independent contractor with revenues generated by the parking facility by making the fee paid to the operator a percentage of the gross revenues earned by the parking facility. In contrast, a lease arrangement requires that the operator keep the revenues from the parking facility and pay the owner rent. Since the rental amount is based upon a projection of the parking facility's revenues, the lessee will likely require a rent that will not be as favorable to the owner as the percentage fee paid under a management agreement.
The DOJ's Corporate Enforcement Policy: One Year Later
The DOJ's Criminal Division issued three declinations since the issuance of the revised CEP a year ago. Review of these cases gives insight into DOJ's implementation of the new policy in practice.
The DOJ's New Parameters for Evaluating Corporate Compliance Programs
The parameters set forth in the DOJ's memorandum have implications not only for the government's evaluation of compliance programs in the context of criminal charging decisions, but also for how defense counsel structure their conference-room advocacy seeking declinations or lesser sanctions in both criminal and civil investigations.
Use of Deferred Prosecution Agreements In White Collar Investigations
This article discusses the practical and policy reasons for the use of DPAs and NPAs in white-collar criminal investigations, and considers the NDAA's new reporting provision and its relationship with other efforts to enhance transparency in DOJ decision-making.
A Lawyer's System for Active Reading
Active reading comprises many daily tasks lawyers engage in, including highlighting, annotating, note taking, comparing and searching texts. It demands more than flipping or turning pages.
Bankruptcy Sales: Finding a Diamond In the Rough
There is no efficient market for the sale of bankruptcy assets. Inefficient markets yield a transactional drag, potentially dampening the ability of debtors and trustees to maximize value for creditors. This article identifies ways in which investors may more easily discover bankruptcy asset sales.