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Richard G. "Rick" Burton, 59, Nixa, Missouri, and Kathy Cyrena Allen, also known as Kathy Stanton, 66, Sarcoxie, Missouri, were charged in a 19-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Springfield on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2009. The federal indictment alleges that Burton and Stanton, through their companies, conspired to defraud financial institutions of more than $2.6 million through a series of &#xe2€&#xa6 Read More... Posted on November 20, 2009 at 01:59 am

Kevin M. O'Connell, 35, Albany, New York pled guilty to a one-count information charging him with the felony offense of laundering of monetary instruments in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1956(a)(1)(A)(i), in connection with his role in an extensive mortgage fraud scheme that defrauded financial institutions and other mortgage lenders of over $5.3 million in loans. O'Connell admitted his participation in a mortgage fraud scheme that occurred from at least July &#xe2€&#xa6 Read... Posted on November 20, 2009 at 01:46 am

Mark Strodtman, 52, Windsor, Coloarado, was found guilty of 23 criminal counts including, COCCA - Pattern of Racketeering (a class two felony; punishable by up to 48 years in prison if aggravating circumstances are met), Theft $15,000 or more 11 counts (a class three felony; punishable by up to 24 years in prison per count). Forgery - check / commercial instrument 11 counts (a class five felony; punishable by up to 6 years per count). On March 25, &#xe2€&#xa6 Read More... Posted on November 20, 2009 at 01:20 am

Whatever Mark Zandi's smoking, I want a toke. Testifying today before the Congressional Oversight Panel that "oversees" the Treasury Department's TARP, Mr. Zandi made a bold assertion. Mark Zandi, the chief economist and cofounder of Moody's Economy.com, said that banks were "overcapitalized." [...] Zandi testified that the most effective aspect of the TARP program has been the use of funds to provide capital to the banking system. The Treasury committed $205bn through the Capital Purchase... Posted on November 19, 2009 at 07:20 pm by Kevin Funnell

/**/ Former client and long time banker Pat Dalrymple (the subject of a previous post) has joined the world of banking bloggers with "Contrabanker: A Bank Contrarian's Blog"). If Pat's first post is any indication, he's going to provide a no-holds-barred, cranky (but amusingly so) read. That's what happens when you've been around the block so many times: nothing surprises you and you don't really give a hoot whose toes you step on when you tell us what you really think. After "dissing" himself... Posted on November 18, 2009 at 07:12 pm by Kevin Funnell

Sheila Bair said last week that the TARP CPP program was, in retrospect, maybe not such a good idea. "I just see all the problems it's created now," she said in an interview with PBS economics correspondent Paul Solman. "The horrible public outcry - it's had a terrible, terrible impact on public attitudes towards the financial systems, towards the regulatory community. It's created all sorts of issues about government ownership of these institutions. What happens if they get in trouble again?... Posted on November 17, 2009 at 07:19 pm by Kevin Funnell

The Privacy Commissioner has released the following case notes: In Own Motion Investigation v Financial Institution [2009] PrivCmrA 12 the Commissioner commenced an own motion investigation after being advised by an individual that a financial institution had been sending bank account statements to the previous occupant of the individual's residential address for several years, despite these statements consistently being returned, marked 'Return to sender. Address unknown'. The financial... Posted on November 19, 2009 at 12:44 pm by David Jacobson

In Australian Securities and Investments Commission v Rich [2009] NSWSC 1229 Judge Austin decided that ASIC had failed to prove its case against One.Tel director and joint chief executive Jodee Rich and One.Tel's finance director Mark Silbermann. ASIC brought civil penalty proceedings for breach of the statutory duty of care of company directors and officers. The proceedings were initially brought by ASIC against four defendants, arising out of the collapse in May 2001 of a large Australian... Posted on November 18, 2009 at 11:41 am by David Jacobson

This article by me was first published in Retail Banking Review. The Government has confirmed that it will accept the Australian Law Reform Commission's recommendation to amend the Privacy Act to allow credit reporting to include information about an individual's repayment history to compliment its proposed credit licensing responsible lending obligations. What information will be included in credit reports? The changes will permit credit reporting information to include the following... Posted on November 17, 2009 at 11:12 am by David Jacobson

Deloitte's recently published 24th Annual Holiday Survey of retail spending and trends vindicates what you are likely seeing all around you. Consumers are expected to increasingly use social media for their holiday shopping this year. Deloitte finds 17% of consumers plan to use social media in their holiday shopping, and among those, 60% plan to use it to find discounts, coupons and sale information. 53% plan to use social media to research gift ideas and 52% plan to check the gift wish lists... Posted on November 16, 2009 at 01:02 pm

We saw this on the Grant Thornton home page, and the title was so tantalizing, it was too good not to dig in and blog about it. This recently released study by David Weild and Edward Kim indicates that a sharp fall in US publicly listed companies is generally driving a depression in US stock markets and further, that it has inhibited economic recovery, impaired the job market and undermined U.S.competitiveness. The deep underlying cause for this - severe changes to the market structure over the... Posted on November 16, 2009 at 10:48 am

Twitter just released its latest exciting functionality - Twitter Lists, and we think it's awesome and very timely. It allows us to curate who we think are the most appropriate Tweeters to follow in our niche space of The Big Four Firms, accounting, finance, tax, jobs and related topics. We have already created some list, which we are calling "The Best Of". We rather like this name, but we'll evolve as lists get more ingrained, and may change. For example after our search, all the Twitterers we... Posted on November 9, 2009 at 02:54 pm

What's that? You thought Tellabs banned confidential witnesses? Well, let's not get carried away here, as there's certainly at least two ways to read that opinion. Of course, after the 7th Circuit decided Higginbotham v. Baxter, it was beginning to look like you might actually be right. But Senior Judge Samuel Conti (Nixon '70) (yes I said 1970) chose to reject the Seventh Circuit and go with the Fifth Circuit's view on the subject, which says that Tellabs does not "presumptively preclude... Posted on March 18, 2008 at 06:54 pm

Attorneys who voluntarily set Monday deadlines are just simply no fun. I mean, you get to pick the days, so why kill a future weekend? You know all the work gets done at the last minute, so nix those Mondays the next time your curmudgeon opposing counsel tries to get you to agree to one. Well, we've located one Judge who agrees. In the Sourcefire securities class action, Judge J. Frederick Motz (Reagan '85) asked the attorneys to "confer with one another to agree upon a briefing schedule in the... Posted on March 16, 2008 at 10:56 am

Now this is entertainment (at least to me it is). And if you're a securities class action lawyer that's a word that might not enter your daily routine all that often. In the Motorola securities class action, Dr. Antonio Pagnamenta (Professor of Physics, emeritus at UIC), wrote a letter to the court which says (along with my annotations in Nugget green italics below of course): Your Honorable Wise, and Most Hopefully Generous Judge Pallmeyer: [A]s a member of the Class, I have carefully... Posted on November 13, 2007 at 06:09 pm

The FTC announced in late October that the enforcement deadline for the Identity Theft "Red Flags" Rule would be extended to June 1, 2010. This extension should be viewed as an indication of the time required for financial institutions and creditors to implement identity theft programs in compliance with the Red Flags Rule, rather than a license to procrastinate. The announcement of the deadline extension came amid discoveries by federal regulators and examiners that a handful of institutions... Posted on November 10, 2009 at 08:35 am by Jeffrey Andersen

On October 30, 2009, the FDIC and other financial regulators released a 33-page Policy Statement on Prudent Commercial Real Estate Loan Workouts describing how examiners should evaluate the efforts of financial institutions to renew or restructure loans to commercial real estate ("CRE") borrowers. Some key points contained in this policy statement that should be of interest to lenders are set forth below: The policy statement applies to borrowers who "continue to be creditworthy customers who... Posted on November 9, 2009 at 07:00 am by Jeffrey Andersen

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ("FDIC") has issued a notice entitled "Weekly National Rates and Rate Caps" in which it reminded less than well capitalized FDIC-insured institutions that they can use the redefined national rate to determine their compliance with interest rate restrictions under Part 337.6 of the FDIC Rules and Regulations. The notice lists the national rate and rate cap for various products as updated November 2, 2009. Although the rule redefining the national rate... Posted on November 4, 2009 at 12:49 pm by Jeffrey Andersen

In the wake of the current financial crisis, federal legislators have proposed numerous reform measures. We've covered many of the more significant ones: click here to read about Congressman Paul Kanjorski's Investor Protection Act, Private Fund Investment Advisers Registration Act, and Federal Insurance Office Act; and click here to read about Senator Specter's Anti-Twombly Act and Anti-Stoneridge Act. (As it was the Pomerantz firm that brought the Stoneridge case to the Supreme Court, we are... Posted on November 20, 2009 at 01:11 pm by Jim Hodgson

As Shaheen Rushd reports in the September/October issue of The Pomerantz Monitor, analysts and public officials have blamed the near-collapse of the financial system in large part on excessive pay, both its outsized amount and the fact that short-term risk-taking was rewarded. Despite the public outcry, it is business as usual at the country's biggest corporations, including those that were bailed out with taxpayer money. The pay frenzy continues. According to a recent report by the Institute... Posted on November 12, 2009 at 09:05 am by Carolyn Moskowitz

Recently, Risk Metrics revisited an article published earlier this year called Is 'Pay-to-Play' Driving Public Pension Fund Activism in Securities Class Actions? An Empirical Study, written by David H. Webber, the Wagner Fellow in Law & Business at NYU's Law School and Stern School of Business earlier this year. The article analyzed whether elected officials acting as trustees for pension funds funnel business to law firms that provide campaign contributions to that official. Despite... Posted on November 4, 2009 at 02:26 pm by Tamar Weinrib

The tiny auditor of Bernard Madoff's Wall Street firm, at the center of an alleged $50-billion Ponzi scheme, is being investigated by the district attorney in a New York City suburb. Friehling & Horowitz had signed off on the annual financial statement for Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, according to Bloomberg News. CFO.com's calls to the auditing firm's headquarters in New City, N.Y., were not answered yesterday. "We're trying to determine if there have been any state crimes... Posted on December 16, 2008 at 06:29 pm

Noteworthy language in the relief regarding market transparency, oversight and audit, and mark-to-market (MTM) FAS157 treatment: Section 114. Market Transparency. 48-hour Reporting Requirement: The Secretary is required, within 2 business days of exercising authority under this Act, to publicly disclose the details of any transaction. Section 116. Oversight and Audits. Requires the Comptroller General of the United States to conduct ongoing oversight of the activities and performance of TARP,... Posted on September 29, 2008 at 03:33 am

Free report from Gartner on leading GRC applications, courtesy of MetricStream. Posted on August 9, 2008 at 04:45 pm

Coincidence? You be the judge. Bank of America's General Counsel Tmothy Mayopoulos was summarily dismissed "just one day after he learned of bigger than expected at Merrill [Lynch, which was acquired by BofA, which allegedly failed to disclose to BofA... Posted on November 20, 2009 at 05:32 am by Banking LawProf

In today's Joint House and Senate Economic Committee hearing, Republican Representative from Texas Kevin Brady asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to resign. Geithner responded in the negative, pointing out that President Obama inherited an economy "falling off the cliff." Link:... Posted on November 19, 2009 at 11:39 am by Banking LawProf

Bloomberg's Rebecca Christie has an article today discussing Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's perspective that bank's are "obligated" to extend more loans to small businesses. The point is that if the economy is to recover, small businesses must have access to... Posted on November 18, 2009 at 06:38 pm by Banking LawProf

/**/ In acquisitions of public companies, private equity sponsors often seek to retain members of the target's management to run the day-to-day operations of the portfolio company after closing. Almost invariably, the sponsors will offer management shares in the surviving company in order to align the managers' interests in improving the company's profitability with those of the private equity fund. Sponsors may offer managers an equity interest in the surviving company in proportion to their... Posted on October 27, 2009 at 05:22 pm

/**/ In debates over public policy, the first battle often involves a contest over narrative. If others adopt your story, you can gain an early advantage by having lawmakers solve the problems you define for them. In this month's hearings on "Enhancing Oversight of Private Pools of Capital" before the House Financial Services Committee, Douglas Lowenstein, President of the Private Equity Council (PEC), told a familiar tale: Twin brothers, both productive and contributive to the common good,... Posted on October 23, 2009 at 11:39 am

/**/ Everybody likes a fight. So it came as no surprise that the media dredged up some hackneyed headlines to describe the House Financial Services Committee's hearings on regulating hedge funds, venture capital, and private equity earlier this month. Whether they dodged bullets at a "Showdown at the VC Corral" or witnessed bloodlust as "PE lobbyists throw VCs under the bus," journalists let us know that - surprise! - the private equity community trashed the venture capital exemption in... Posted on October 21, 2009 at 03:10 pm

While it may be relatively easy to plead loss causation in the Fifth Circuit, things become a lot more difficult for plaintiffs when it comes time to offer proof. This week, in Fener v. Belo Corp., 2009 WL 2450674 (5th... Posted on August 14, 2009 at 08:52 pm by Lyle Roberts

There will be no new posts on The 10b-5 Daily until after August 10.... Posted on July 31, 2009 at 09:02 pm by Lyle Roberts

NERA Economic Consulting has released a study entitled Recent Trends In Shareholder Class Action Litigation: 2009 Mid-Year Update. The study reaches the following notable conclusions: (1) There have been 127 cases filed in the first half of 2009, on pace... Posted on July 30, 2009 at 07:59 pm by Lyle Roberts

It's crunch time. This week, the House of Representatives will decide on a bill that will give the new systemic risk regulator the power to override the SEC's judgment in its oversight of the Financial Accounting Standards Boards. It would set up a "council" of interested parties to exercise its judgment over the SEC's. According to Jessica Holzer of Dow Jones Newswires, the American Bankers Association, the Commercial Mortgage Securities Association, the Council of Federal Home Loan Banks, the... Posted on November 16, 2009 at 07:23 pm

There are so many things going on in the standard-setting arena, it makes your head spin. And your stomach as well. At last September's Pittsburgh meeting, the G-20 "call[ed] on our international accounting bodies to redouble their efforts to achieve a single set of high quality, global accounting standards within the context of their independent standard setting process, and complete their convergence project by June 2011." Just last week, FASB chairman went the G-20 one better, vowing to... Posted on November 9, 2009 at 07:51 am

... is stock compensation. And it's about to become bigger, as "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg moved yesterday to restrict pay on managers at bailed-out banks and automakers. As Joe Nocera points out in the New York Times, retention bonuses are out; guaranteed bonuses are out. But pay for performance is going to be "in," at least among those beneficiaries of government aid. It probably won't stay isolated to just those corporate wards of the state, either. There's a lot of copycat behavior present... Posted on October 23, 2009 at 08:48 am

There's a very good piece in the Financial Times today about Goldman Sachs by Francesco Guerrera and Tom Braithwaite. It's available online at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1eb0ea18-d497-11de-a935-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1 The authors explain how competitive Goldman is and how profits and risk management drive the firm. They go on to explain how difficult it will be for Goldman to handle the backlash of paying out huge bonuses in an environment of double digit unemployment rates. For a long... Posted on November 19, 2009 at 07:00 am by Ross B. Intelisano

On July 16, 2009, SEC charged Medical Capital Holdings Inc. of Tustin, Calif., with fraud in the sale of $77 million of private notes. According to sources, many independent broker-dealers such as American Portfolios Financial Services, National Securities Corp., Securities America, and Signature Financial Group, sold the notes. Rich & Intelisano is presently investigating Medical Capital and speaking with investors who purchased Medical Capital Holdings through registered broker dealers or... Posted on November 18, 2009 at 02:52 pm by Ross B. Intelisano

FINRA announced yesterday that it won approval from the SEC to expand its BrokerCheck service to make records of final regulatory actions against brokers permanently available to the public, regardless of whether the broker continues to be employed in the securities industry. The FINRA press release states disclosure records for former brokers will be available on BrokerCheck beginning November 30. It goes on to state, "This is an important step for investors and for investor protection," said... Posted on November 18, 2009 at 02:36 pm by Ross B. Intelisano

Congratulations to Michael Robertson and team at Gizmo5 for all of their hard work and perseverance! There is not a lot I can tell you about the future plans for Google Voice, but I do believe it is important to look back to see how we got here. We made our investment in Gizmo5 (aka as sipphone and gizmo project) in early 2006. What Michael and I shared was a vision of openness for the VOIP and IM World. As I wrote on a blog post in January 2006, consumers want what Google and Gizmo5 will... Posted on November 13, 2009 at 07:28 am by Ed Sim

Today I took a sales team from a portfolio company to meet with a couple of senior IT executives at a major retail company. Towards the end of the meeting, it started to become quite clear to me the effect that Google and the web has had on IT to date and where it was going. In an oversimplified way, it seems that there have been 3 distinct phases to how the web and Google have impacted the enterprise, first starting at the app layer and increasingly diving deeper into the core infrastructure.... Posted on October 27, 2009 at 12:55 pm by Ed Sim

Our washer and dryer was on the fritz today, and as I started to do some research on large capacity stackable units I started to get overwhelmed with all of the new terminology and features. After all, isn't a washer a washer and a dryer a dryer. How many different combinations and features could there be? As I dug deeper I found myself thinking about these appliances less from a consumer's viewpoint and more from a marketing one and appreciating how these various companies could make a... Posted on September 16, 2009 at 02:36 pm by Ed Sim

A significant part of the Firm's Veterans Benefit Program is raising awareness about the many fantastic organizations that support our nation's honorable veterans. One such organization is Operation Homefront, which provides assistance for our troops, their families and for wounded warriors when they return home. These services include providing emergency aid (food, baby care items, etc.), financial assistance and even helping families move their households when a service member is deployed.... Posted on November 20, 2009 at 09:42 am by Ryan Smith

The inaugural issue of L'AWful Prose hit e-mailboxes around the country on November 15, 2009. It offers news and notes gleaned from my law practice - The Law Office of Ryan P. Smith, PLC - and life in general. In this newsletter, I share my take on issues in securities law and veterans benefits law. I also offer you assorted notes and observations from the lighter side of life. You are invited to read, enjoy and, if the mood strikes you, comment on this material or pass it along to interested... Posted on November 18, 2009 at 08:32 am by Ryan Smith

The present financial crisis has generated a tremendous amount of coverage and I am sure that much more is to come. And rightfully so. One of the more recent offerings is Knight Kiplinger's column Lessons From the Crisis, which is available in the December issue of Kiplinger's Personal Finance. Kiplinger, who is the magazine's Editor in Chief, offers a thoughtful and concise "lessons learned" for investors and regulators alike. Among the more notable lessons are: "Complexity breeds chaos" (or... Posted on November 14, 2009 at 08:00 am by Ryan Smith

By Executive Order dated November 17, 2009, President Obama established a new interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force ("Task Force"). The Task Force, led by the Department of Justice and chaired by Attorney General Eric Holder, will work with state and local law enforcement agencies to strengthen efforts to "investigate and prosecute significant financial crimes and other violations relating to the current financial crisis and economic recovery efforts, recover the proceeds of such... Posted on November 18, 2009 at 07:59 am by Richard D. Worth

The anticipated escalation of securities and investment fraud cases prompting criminal charges got off to an unexpected start with the acquittal of two Bear Stearns hedge fund managers last week. Regardless, financial industry members and their attorneys should continue to defend civil investigations and suits and administrative actions with an eye on the possibility of an indictment. Administrative enforcement personnel are in constant referral contact with criminal enforcement agencies such... Posted on November 15, 2009 at 12:50 pm by David Cosgrove

On November 3, 2009, the Financial Planning Coalition sent a letter to members of the House Financial Services Committee expressing the Coalition's concern regarding an amendment to the Investor Protection Act of 2009 ("IPA"), which was passed by the Committee on October 25, 2009. The amendment would extend FINRA's authority to cover investment advisors who are associated with broker-dealers already under FINRA's authority. The Coalition, made up of the Certified Financial Planner Board of... Posted on November 5, 2009 at 12:41 am by Kurt J. Schafers

So&#xe2€&#xa6 commercial real estate has been the next financial shoe to drop for some time now. The best thing about the meltdown in commercial property, for me anyway, is that it's just a variation on a now all too well-known theme: Underwater properties cannot be refinanced so when loans come due&#xe2€&#xa6 it's foreclosure time. And foreclosures on underwater properties result in losses for banks and other investor groups, which in turn lead to federal bailouts, at least in cases where the bank is deemed... Posted on November 14, 2009 at 07:15 pm by Mandelman

I spend time talking with homeowners every single day. I listen to their stories day after day and it's so painful, because I feel so helpless. Many times I want to scream. The foreclosure crisis that has been allowed to continue in this country must be stopped, and I'm quite sure it would have been months ago&#xe2€&#xa6 if homeowners had a powerful lobby in Washington&#xe2€&#xa6 if America's homeowners had a voice that could be heard. Well, this next year is a very important election year on both sides of the... Posted on November 13, 2009 at 05:12 pm by Mandelman

The Obama Administration's Making Home Affordable program may have gotten off to a slow start, but ever since the press started criticizing the program's insipid results, things have improved quickly and dramatically. According to data released by the U.S. Teaseury Department, when you add up the numbers of loan modifications being reported by the Hope Wow Alliance, Chaseme, Bunk of America, Wheres Fargo, MUD, and other skanks and servicers, as of November more than 3.6 billion homeowners have... Posted on November 13, 2009 at 01:21 am by Mandelman

This month, Faith, Katherine & Rob bring you the following topics: --Credit CARD Act update. --HOEPA update. --Regulation GG. --Pandemic preparation. --Ugottaloan --Big K Roundup (To Tweet or Not to Tweet; New Developments on Consumer Protection Agency; The Protocol--How Will it Impact a Credit Union's Relationship with its Broker-Dealer) The CIiCU hosts are: Brian Witt Hal Scoggins Farleigh Wada Witt, Attorneys at Law 121 SW Morrison Street, Suite 600 Portland, Oregon 97204 Telephone:... Posted on October 27, 2009 at 03:31 pm

Faith, Brian, Katherine & Rob bring you the following topics: --Potential shorting of compliance date on the Credit CARD Act (and other updates) --Changes to the GFE and RESPA. --New rules for IAT. --Official UBIT Victory --End to Overdraft Protection As We Know It? --Credits Unions Likely to be Swept into the Consumer Financial Protection Agency --Extraordinary Philanthropic Gestures by Credit Unions The CIiCU hosts are: Brian Witt Hal Scoggins Farleigh Wada Witt, Attorneys at Law 121 SW... Posted on September 29, 2009 at 02:36 pm

David Reed, the CU Doctor is our guest this month. Faith, Brian, Guy, Katherine and Rob host. Here are the topics: --Credit CARD Act ongoing madness. --Bankruptcy Cramdowns. --Speculation as to what&#xc3&#xa2s going to happen on closed end loans by way of new regulations. --Big K Roundup. --Bad Debt Restructuring The CIiCU hosts are: Brian Witt Member Farleigh Wada Witt, Attorneys at Law 121 SW Morrison Street, Suite 600 Portland, Oregon 97204 Telephone: 503-228-6044 Fax: 503-228-1741... Posted on August 25, 2009 at 03:00 pm

So you always wanted to be a partner in a venture capital fund? Well, here's how it works. The following is Part 3 of my five-part series on how to invest in early stage technology companies as an angel investor or through an investment in a venture capital fund. Privately held companies in emerging technology sectors--such as nanotech, clean tech, biotech, info tech and new media--frequently have exciting upside potential that can only be fully harnessed by investing in them when they're in... Posted on July 9, 2009 at 12:43 pm

An interesting historical artifact discovered by Steve Blank. Apparently, in 1956, Fred Terman (then Stanford's Provost) asked Bill Hewlett for help figuring out these new things called computers. Bill's response letter shows just how exotic computers were at the time I have no personal knowledge of computers nor does anyone in our organization have any appreciable knowledge. How times have changed. Posted on June 23, 2009 at 05:14 am

The following is Part 2 of my five-part series on the roles of angel investors and venture capital investors in emerging technology sectors with explosive upside potential, such as the nanotech, cleantech, biotech, information technology and new media sectors. In Part 1, I gave a general overview of the playing field. Below, I examine the stages of an emerging growth company's lifecycle and the types of investment that it hopes to obtain at each relevant stage. Introduction Many investors are... Posted on May 19, 2009 at 01:26 pm

Such was the thrust of testimony before a Senate committee this week by Robert Pickel, head of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), and Richard Lindsey, former president of Bear Stearns' brokerage unit, regarding the role of credit default swaps (CDSs) in the current economic crisis. Said Lindsey, "[R]isks [are] not created by derivatives. They [are] created by individuals or corporations making bad choices when using derivatives." Given recent events, perhaps it would be... Posted on October 17, 2008 at 08:03 pm

Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke may be escaping from the precipice of one horrific calamity, only to be breathing a sigh of relief just as an even worse catastrophe looms. The plan to buy distressed mortgage related assets and derivative products, referred to by some as TARP (the Troubled Asset Relief Program) and by others as MOAB (the Mother of All Bailouts), may provide some short term relief to the global financial markets, which perhaps will suffice to head off greater disaster. However,... Posted on September 22, 2008 at 08:57 pm

On June 16, 2008, the United States Supreme Court, in Florida Dept. of Revenue v. Piccadilly Cafeterias, Inc., Case No. 07-312, held that a bankruptcy court may not exempt a debtor from state transfer taxes on the sale of its assets prior to confirmation of its Chapter 11 plan. In a 7-2 decision, the Court reversed the order of the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida (the "Bankruptcy Court"), which applied Section 1146(a) of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, formerly designated as... Posted on June 19, 2008 at 04:38 pm