In today’s economic environment, businesses are looking to modify and re-structure debt to pull through until the economy turns around. Rather than allowing so many loans to go bad, lenders are working with debtors to re-structure loans in a manner that allows the debtor to stay in business. For example, a lender may allow a [...]

Just this week, another big financial company — CIT Small Business Lending Corporation — filed bankruptcy. CIT filed a “prepackaged” filing, in which terms for restructuring are negotiated before the bankruptcy case is filed. In more conventional bankruptcy filings, it can take a year or more before a plan is confirmed; in a pre-pak, filers [...]

The first two provisions of the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (“CARD”) Act of 2009 went into effect Thursday, August 20, 2009.  The CARD Act is designed to protect consumers from unfair and deceptive practices by credit card companies. 

It is the mid-1980’s. Savings & Loan institutions are failing at an alarming rate. So many are insolvent, in fact, that the Federal Savings & Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC), the deposit insurer of thrifts at that time, is running out of money to close insolvent thrifts. What does FSLIC do? It seeks out purchasers, who [...]

In Wednesday’s Business Week, Ben Steverman’s anaylsis of the possiblities of upcoming bankruptcy activity indicates that filings, rather than slowing as the economy gains its footing again, will instead swell with the failure of numerous entrepreneurial and high-debt companies. His opinion is that this will be due largely to the continuing spin-down in consumer demand [...]

“We may be seeing the beginning of the end of the recession,” President Barack Obama said yesterday in Raleigh.  Indeed, parts of the country are starting to experience some economic stability, according to the latest figures issued by the Federal Reserve, but the Fifth District of Virginia, North Carolina and  South Carolina remains weak. 

As a business attorney, I tell clients they should have a trusted “kitchen cabinet” of professionals to go to for advice:  attorney, accountant, insurance agent and financial planner.  It is nice to know someone and feel comfortable before you have a problem.  Yet, finding a trustworthy professional in these fields can be daunting.  How can [...]

Although they said it could not be done, headlines now proclaim that Chrysler and General Motors have navigated the bankruptcy process in record speed.  Indeed, new companies have “emerged” from each bankruptcy case.  However, both bankruptcy cases are still pending (see here and here), and much more still needs to be done in each bankruptcy case, [...]

Federal Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert Gerber approved the sale of most General Motors assets to a new corporation to be owned by the governments of the United States, Canada and the province of Ontario, the United Auto Worker’s Voluntary Employee Benefit Association trust (“VEBA”), and GM bondholders.  Gerber today also denied a “fast track” appeal to [...]

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is testifying today to a joint hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and House Domestic Policy Subcommittee. The purpose of the joint hearing is to examine events surrounding Bank of America’s $50 million acquisition troubled investment house Merrill Lynch in September 2009 and its receipt of [...]