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Distressed Hedge Funds Amidst the Credit Crunch
As we begin a new year, many beleaguered hedge funds will reflect on 2007 and how the credit crunch affected Wall Street, corporate borrowers and hedge funds in the long run. Although nobody knows if the end of troubled times is near, we do know that a sustained recovery will take lots of know-how, cooperation and willingness to be more transparent in our dealings with one another and, perhaps, some old-fashioned work.
As many of us know, until mid-August 2007, Wall Street was awash in cash and derivative securities; selling the latter for mounting sums of the former. The derivative products, collateralized loan (or debt) obligations (CLOs or CDOs), were bond-like securities (comprised of hundreds or thousands of securitized bonds or mortgages) sold to investors directly or through massive pooling vehicles called Structured Investment Vehicles (SIVs). The SIVs bought the CLOs or CDOs en masse, and sold interests in the SIVs to investors. The inherently complicated structure and hedging of these various investments securities were to provide relative safety to investors (including hedge funds) by virtue of the diversification of risk among the underlying borrowers. Investors could, in effect, buy more or less risk, based on which tranche of a particular CDO or CLO issuance they purchased, and SIV investor could limit downside risk because the SIV investments were themselves so diversified ' or so they thought.
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.
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.
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.