Posts Tagged ‘judge
McDonald’s Dispute Pushes Bankruptcy Judge Over the Edge
- Reuters
It takes a lot to exasperate Judge Kevin Gross of the Delaware bankruptcy court. But after nearly six years on the bench, he finally hit his limit over an unfinished McDonald’s on a Manhattan street corner.
Last week, Gross did the judicial equivalent of throwing up his hands and walking away over a lawsuit between McDonald’s Corp. and the developer of the controversial One Madison Park condominium project—a 50-story tower whose legal troubles have made it an icon of the collapse of the commercial real-estate market.
McDonald’s, which owned the two-story restaurant that was torn down for the condo building, pressed the developer over its broken promise to allow the restaurant to reopen either in or near the swanky new project on 22 East 23rd St. in New York.
But that’s boiling it down. The actual arguments before Gross took up hundreds of pages and prompted him to formally abstain from the issue, meaning that he won’t allow the issue to move forward in his court.
The dispute has very little to do with Gross’s bankruptcy-court expertise, he wrote. And resolving the matter would force him to interpret New York state law that, frankly, he doesn’t have time to learn.
“It is fair to say the parties won’t agree on what day it is,” Gross said in an opinion filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington. “The proceedings would therefore occupy far more of the court’s and staff’s time than the size and number of proceedings might suggest, and the court’s efforts would certainly be greatly disproportionate to the minimal, if any, significance” to the condominium tower’s reorganization efforts.
Gross pointed out that dodging complex issues isn’t his style. Since picking up a gavel, he has overseen the contentious Chapter 11 case of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and he supervised the unwinding Canadian telecom giant Nortel Networks Corp., among other complicated cases.
“It is worth noting that this judge has never—never—abstained from hearing a matter regardless of its complexity and difficulty,” he wrote in his eight-page opinion. “The court fully recognizes that abstention is a rare and extraordinary act. The circumstances presented here are unique and exceptional.”
McDonald’s attorney Paul S. Rubin of the Herrick Feinstein law firm said Gross’s decision means that both groups could eventually take their arguments to New York state court, where the fighting could continue.
Bankruptcy Judge Orders Young Buck Into Liquidation
A bankruptcy judge told Young Buck to get straight out of Cashville.
Judge George C. Paine II of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Nashville, Tenn., switched Young Buck’s Chapter 11 reorganization to a Chapter 7 liquidation this week, court papers show, granting the request of the attorney shepherding the rapper and driving force behind Cashville Records through bankruptcy.
As Bankruptcy Beat previously reported, trustee Jeanne Burton in October concluded that Young Buck (real name: David Darnell Brown) didn’t have a viable shot at reorganizing. Burton came to this conclusion after spending months reviewing Young Buck’s financial situation and helping him to craft a bankruptcy-exit plan. But in the end, it all came down to fellow rapper and former mentor 50 Cent.
That’s because Young Buck’s plan counted on his ability modify a recording agreement with 50 Cent’s G-Unit Records and a distribution agreement with Universal Music Group. The revamped agreements would provide the revenue needed to pay off Young Buck’s creditors, according to the plan. However, G-Unit and Curtis Jackson (aka 50 Cent) opposed the plan, and Burton said both G-Unit and Universal aren’t willing to modify the agreements.
In Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Young Buck had the ability to work with Burton in putting forth a plan that would use his future earnings to pay his creditors. But under Chapter 7, his assets could be sold and distributed among his creditors. Still, he can ask the court to declare certain assets exempt from bankruptcy, allowing him to keep them, and he can also ask the court to release him from certain debts.
There will be a meeting for Young Buck’s creditors on Jan. 30 in Nashville, court papers show.
As the rapper’s Twitter feed would have it, perhaps there may be some cash for creditors. He declared that he “Made more #Money than my whole Career in 7 days!!!” in a Nov. 30 tweet, which he followed up the same day by claiming “And just for the #Haters sake, I DON’T OWE NOOOBODY S*@$ !!! Not even who u thank I OWE!!!”
Or maybe we shouldn’t read too much into that. After all, on Dec. 7, Young Buck tweeted this: “Judge me by the #Man, not by what’s in my #Hand. #Money don’t make you #Real.”
Lehman bankruptcy judge denies Morgan Stanley customer status
Morgan Stanley fails to qualify as a customer for the “to-be-announced” forward contracts it negotiated with Lehman Bros. Inc. because the investment bank never entrusted any property to the bankrupt brokerage, a New York federal judge has ruled.
Thomson Reuters News & Insight: Bankruptcy Law – Insight
JUDGE DENNIS BLACKMON NAILS US BANK IN GEORGIA ON HAMP, WRONGFUL FORECLOSURE AND EMOTIONAL DISTRESS DAMAGES
MOST POPULAR ARTICLES
GET COMBO TITLE AND SECURITIZATION ANALYSIS – CLICK HERE
PhillipsvsUSBankHomeownersare3rdPartyBeneficiariesofHAMP
“Sometimes, only courts of law stand to protect the taxpayer. Somewhere, someone has to stand up. Well, sometimes is now, and the place is the Great State of Georgia. The Defendant’s Motion is hereby Denied”
“The United States Government paid taxpayer dollars to the largest of our financial institutions, and to European Union Banks, in order to prop up those poorly run organizations. Twenty Billion of those dollars were handed over to the defendant, U.S. Bank.”
“The HAMP guidelines require U.S. Bank to perform modification services for all mortgage loans its services. Otis Philips applied to modify his mortgage with U.S. Bank. U..S. Bank denied the request, without numbers, figures, or explanation, reasoning, comparison to the guidelines, or anything.”
“A cynical Judge might believe that this entire motion to dismiss is a desperate attempt to avoid the discovery period, where U.S. Bank would have to tell Mr. Phillips how his financial situation did not qualify him for a modification. Or, perhaps he was [Judge's emphasis, not mine] qualified, yet didn’t receive the modification, in violation of U.S. Bank’s Service Participation Agreement (SPA).”
“U.S. Bank’s silence on this issue might heighten the suspicions of such a cynical jurist.”
“Clearly, U.S. Bank cannot take the money, contract with our government to provide a a service to the taxpayer, violate that agreement, and then say no one on earth can sue them for it. That is not the law in Georgia. In fact, since no administrative review is provided in HAMP [which is something you should put in your OCC letter demanding review], the courts are the only recourse.”
Filed under: bubble, CDO, CORRUPTION, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, Investor, Mortgage, securities fraud Tagged: bankruptcy, borrower, countrywide, disclosure, emotional distress, foreclosure, foreclosure defense, foreclosure offense, foreclosures, fraud, HAMP, LOAN MODIFICATION, modification, PARTICIPATION AGREEMENT, quiet title, rescission, RESPA, securitization, SERVICE, taxpayer, TILA audit, trustee, US BANK, WEISBAND 
Livinglies’s Weblog
Judge rejects Boise County’s bankruptcy filing
An Idaho county that was hit with a $ 4 million verdict in December for violating the Fair Housing Act has failed to convince a bankruptcy judge that it cannot pay the award and still provide basic services to its residents.
Thomson Reuters News & Insight: Bankruptcy Law – Insight
No ‘absolute priority’ rule after BAPCPA, federal judge says
The “absolute priority” rule no longer applies to individual Chapter 11 debtors since the passage of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, a federal judge in Tampa, Fla., has ruled.
Thomson Reuters News & Insight: Bankruptcy Law – Insight