Law.com Subscribers SAVE 30%
Call 855-808-4530 or email [email protected] to receive your discount on a new subscription.
Presenting Bankruptcy Concepts to Juries
Bankruptcy attorneys may conceive of their field as being a highly specialized and insulated world. Until recently at least, these practitioners tended to practice in bankruptcy courts only; those courts conveniently specialized in bankruptcy, and everyone gathered in those courts spoke essentially the same language. A common belief among bankruptcy practitioners has been that disputed matters invariably sound in equity, thus posing very little danger that an attorney would ever encounter a jury. Moreover, bankruptcy-related issues are sometimes thought to be highly technical, often involving complex accounting or sometimes regulatory or tax principles, such that adjudication by a jury is undesirable in any event.
But juries can appear where one least expects them. Our firm, Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, recently won a defense verdict in a jury trial involving claims by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) against a Chapter 11 debtor and former savings and loan holding company, AmFin Financial Corporation. The FDIC had placed AmFin's subsidiary, AmTrust Bank, into receivership and was seeking to recover at least some of its receivership costs from the bank's parent. Although the full explanation of the bank's deterioration is complicated, as a savings and loan specializing in residential mortgage lending, AmTrust Bank was hit particularly hard by the 2008 (and onward) financial crisis, when its customers began defaulting on their mortgages at record levels.
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.