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Taxpayer Suffers SILO (Pre-tax) Loss in Wells Fargo
Recently publicized budget cuts at the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (“MTA”) caused the closing of two subway lines and left thousands of New York City public-school children without the buses they usually take to school. Perhaps if Congress had not shut down SILOs in 2004, the MTA and many other major U.S. transit agencies would not be in such a financial bind. Thankfully, no one is asking the transits to disgorge the hundreds of millions of dollars of cash they raised doing LILOs and SILO sale-leaseback transactions on their railcars and buses. After all, their own regulator, the Federal Transit Administration, actively encouraged the transit agencies to engage in these “innovative financing transactions” (their name for SILOs). But that did not stop the IRS from litigating the tax benefits claimed by the banks and other corporations that provided the much-needed capital to the transit agencies in these transactions.
In Wells Fargo & Company v. United States, (Fed. Ct. Cl. No. 06-628T, Jan. 8, 2010), a court considered for the first time SILOs involving domestic municipal transit agency lessees. While one would have thought that the domestic and federally approved nature of the transactions would have some influence on the decision, they did not. The judge's decision and description of LILO and SILO transactions as “rotten to the core” reflect an unwelcome return to the result-oriented pro-government decision-making that has characterized most of the decided LILO/SILO cases.
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.
Bit Parts
Summary Judgment Denied Defendant in Declaratory Action by Producer of To Kill a Mockingbird Broadway Play Seeking Amateur Theatrical Rights
Risks of “Baseball Arbitration” in Resolving Real Estate Disputes
“Baseball arbitration” refers to the process used in Major League Baseball in which if an eligible player's representative and the club ownership cannot reach a compensation agreement through negotiation, each party enters a final submission and during a formal hearing each side — player and management — presents its case and then the designated panel of arbitrators chooses one of the salary bids with no other result being allowed. This method has become increasingly popular even beyond the sport of baseball.
One Overlooked Element of Executive Safety: Data Privacy
Executives have access to some of the company's most sensitive information, and they're increasingly being targeted by hackers looking to steal company secrets or to perpetrate cybercrimes.
Why So Many Great Lawyers Stink at Business Development and What Law Firms Are Doing About It
Why is it that those who are best skilled at advocating for others are ill-equipped at advocating for their own skills and what to do about it?