Commercial Law

Dewey Ballatine LLP, with 12 offices worldwide, 550 lawyers, and a history of legal service since 1909, is a well-known brand whose lawyers are consistently visible in the press and at conferences. Leading the firm's efforts in marketing is Jason 'Jay' Dinwoodie, long known in the legal marketing industry as a cutting-edge marketer and strategic innovator.

With corporate scandals, terrorism and economic chaos appearing regularly in the headlines of major newspapers and on broadcast news, now more than ever it seems that American business is in need of good crisis communications. No company is immune to crisis ' so no company should be without some kind of plan to communicate in the midst of that crisis. Organizations that have good plans in place will weather crises far better than those that don't ' or those that believe that not communicating will insulate them in some way from the effects of the crisis.

Two-and-a-half years ago, the Supreme Court ruled in the remedial portion of its bifurcated decision in U.S. v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005), that the system of federal Sentencing Guidelines established by the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 could pass constitutional muster only if the Guidelines were treated as having advisory, rather than mandatory, effect. But Booker left open the question of how much weight the now advisory Guidelines should henceforth be given in a district court's sentencing calculus. Last November, the Supreme Court granted writs of certiorari in two cases ' Rita v. United States, and Claiborne v. United States, that seemed likely to resolve this question.

Last month, the Department of Justice (DOJ) celebrated the five-year anniversary of the Corporate Fraud Task Force with a press release and a party at which then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, in a prepared statement, hailed significant changes in the way white-collar cases have been prosecuted. Gonzales praised the Task Force's role in breaking 'large investigations into smaller, less complex pieces,' and bringing those cases faster. But expedited investigations mixed with quick charging decisions have not been a reliable recipe for success.

With its Feb. 21, 2007 holding in Marrama v. Citizens Bank of Massachusetts, 127 S. Ct. 1105 (2007), the Supreme Court stepped in to resolve a Circuit Court split concerning a debtor's right to convert a Chapter 7 case to a Chapter 13 case under the Bankruptcy Code, pursuant to ' 706(a) of the Code. On its face, ' 706(a) seems clear ' a debtor has an absolute, one-time right to conversion. Such clarity is, in the Supreme Court's view, hazy at best.

Bankruptcy court procedural rulings typically go unnoticed. However, this year two bankruptcy court rulings regarding procedural disclosure requirements potentially applicable to investors participating in the bankruptcy process have caused quite a stir. Both rulings related to the scope of disclosure mandated by Bankruptcy Rule 2019, which applies to 'committees' and 'entities' that represent more than one creditor in a bankruptcy case.

The aggregate value of private equity acquisitions worldwide in 2006 exceeded $660 billion. If this number seems mind-boggling, consider that this record-breaking volume of transactions appears well on the way to being eclipsed in 2007. Even with corporate financing for leveraged buyouts harder to come by as a consequence of the sub-prime mortgage fallout, there is, by some estimates, $300 billion sitting globally in private-equity funds.

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