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Indemnification Claims Under the CCAA A - Caution for Underwriters, Auditors, Directors and Others

Indemnification clauses are often considered a critical component of risk mitigation strategies in legal relationships. However, as is well understood, the value of an indemnification clause, in the event it becomes...more

MMF Independent Trustees in Crisis: MMF Executives Sue Independent Trustees for Fraud and Waste of Corporate Assets

In a bizarre twist to the case of the money market fund that broke the buck, the investment adviser to the Reserve Primary Fund (Reserve Fund) and its principals sued the fund’s independent trustees, laying the blame for the...more

"Thinking Outside the Box - Using the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act to Resolve a Prospective Class Action"

Originally published in the Ontario Bar Association's Class Action Law Section, Volume 3, No. 1 – December 2012. The Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act ("CCAA") has long been lauded as a flexible tool that lends...more

House Financial Services Committee Releases Staff Report on MF Global

The US House of Representatives Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations (Committee) has released a report on the collapse of MF Global (Report). The Report finds that Jon Corzine, MF Global’s Chairman...more

Reformers Eye Distressed-Debt Investors: Do hedge funds and other buyers of the securities of failed companies adversely affect...

The American Bankruptcy Institute’s commission studying reforms of the U.S. bankruptcy code has distressed-debt investors near the top of its agenda. But so far the institute's not getting much backing from the bankruptcy...more

Corporate and Financial Weekly Digest - March 23, 2012

In this issue; - Senate Passes Revised Version of JOBS Bill - SEC Staff Issues Risk Alert on Municipal Securities Underwriting Practices - ISDA Dodd-Frank Documentation Project - CFTC Issues No-Action...more

Commercial Restructuring & Bankruptcy Alert - March 2012

In this issue: - Foreclosures in New Jersey - Substantive Rights' Not Assignable, Intercreditor Voting Rights Assignment Nullified - Offshore Bankruptcy-Remote Entity is Not Bankruptcy-Proof; Trust...more

Enactment of HMRC’s Extra-Statutory Concession C16

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has limited discretion to make concessions in relation to statutory tax provisions.  Following a recent judicial decision suggesting that this discretion was more limited than had been...more

"Skadden's 2012 Insights"

Dear Clients and Friends: I am pleased to provide our fourth annual collection of commentaries on the critical legal issues our clients may face in the year ahead. Many of these issues relate to the responses by...more

Keeping An Eye On MF Global Fallout

Law360, New York (November 22, 2011, 12:17 PM ET) -- On Oct. 31, the MF Global enterprise collapsed into bankruptcy and a number of related insolvency proceedings. Amid allegations of improper commingling of customer accounts...more

MF Global Update: MF Global Proceedings Test Multiple Insolvency Statutes

On October 31, the MF Global enterprise collapsed into bankruptcy and a number of related insolvency proceedings. Amid allegations of improper commingling of customer accounts and rumors of misbegotten proprietary Eurobond...more

MF Global Bankruptcy and its Impact on Traders

The country’s seventh largest trading firm, MF Global filed for bankruptcy October 31 and sent shock waves through the investment fraternity. MF Global was a brokerage that acted as a counter party to investors who wanted to...more

MF Global: US Update as of November 9, 2011 - SIPC Trustee Announces Transfer of Additional Commodity Accounts

On November 7, 2011, the SIPC Trustee (the "Trustee") announced that MF Global Inc. ("MFGI") commodity customer accounts that had not yet been transferred by the Trustee can now be transferred provided that the account holder...more

MF Global - U.S. Update as of November 7, 2011

SIPC Trustee Takes First Steps to Thaw Frozen Customer Securities Accounts On November 4, 2011, the SIPC Trustee took his first steps toward transferring frozen customer securities accounts held by MF Global Inc....more

MF Global – UK Update

The UK special administrators have provided some information for clients with positions with MF Global UK Limited ("MF Global UK"): • All open client positions relating to foreign exchange (FX) have been or are being...more

MF Global CEO Resigns after Bankruptcy

Jon Corzine, the Chairman and CEO of MF Global has submitted his resignation, barely 20 months after being appointed to head the futures brokerage firm. Corzine’s task was to turn the brokerage firm into an investment bank....more

SIPC Trustee Appointed for MF Global, Inc.

On October 31, 2011, the Securities Investor Protection Corporation ("SIPC") filed an application with the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York seeking a declaration that the customers of MF...more

Contractual Rights Vanish Again in the "Bermuda" of Triangular Setoff

The enforcement of triangular setoffs in bankruptcy, where affiliates set off their claims against the debtor, received another setback in a recent decision in the Lehman bankruptcy cases. See In re Lehman Brothers Inc., No....more

DOC Finds A Reorganization Can Include A Rehabilitation

Until last year, Ambac Assurance, a Wisconsin domiciled insurer, was one of the largest monoline insurers in the world. Originally it insured low-risk, public finance bonds. However, in the 1990s it started to offer...more

New York High Court Applies the "Single-Entity Exemption" in the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998

In RGH Liquidating Trust v. Deloitte & Touche, LLP, 2011 WL 2471542 (N.Y. June 23, 2011), the New York Court of Appeals held that a liquidating trust established pursuant to a bankruptcy reorganization plan was a single...more

In re Bank of America, N.A.

Order Dismissing Involuntary Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Filing Against Bank of America, N.A.

The following order dismissing the involuntary chapter 11 petition against Bank of America, N.A. was entered by Bankruptcy Judge Michael Romero (Bankr. D. Colo.) shortly after 3 p.m. on Tuesday. For background on the...more

Securitization and Loan Modification

Securitization Trusts & Loan Modifications At Odds Filed under: Bankruptcy,Loan Modification A major factor complicating private, voluntary loan modification efforts is securitization. The vast majority, somewhere upwards...more

FDIC Board Approves Proposed Rule on "Living Wills" and Credit Exposure Reports for Large Organizations; Announces Remedies for...

The Board of Directors of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) approved on March 29 a joint Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPR) for covered systemic organizations to file and report resolution plans and credit...more

Fact Inquiry Necessary to Determinate Which Sales of Securities Were "By Means Of" Misstatements

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Massachusetts recently denied a motion for summary judgment on the issue of damages by investors in Access Cardiosystems, Inc. against one of the defendants, Randall Fincke. The...more

Ninth Circuit Declares No General Alter Ego Claim Exists In CA Law

When alter ego is alleged, the question may arise as to whether the theory is to be applied generally (i.e., for all of the creditors) or specifically (i.e., in the particular case presented by the creditor). This...more