Commercial
-
January 24, 2025
Various Law Offices Evacuated As Hughes Fire Burns Nearby
Within hours of igniting Wednesday, the Hughes Fire became the third-largest blaze to affect Los Angeles County this month — and prompted various lawyers in the area to evacuate their offices.
-
January 24, 2025
Property Plays: AT&T, Blue Owl, Flow Life
Property Plays is a weekly roundup of the latest loans, leases, sales and projects around the country. Send your tips — all confidential — to realestate@law360.com.
-
January 24, 2025
NJ Judge Rejects Bid For New Trial In Red Roof Inn Deal
A New Jersey state judge has rejected a bid for a new trial over a deal gone wrong to purchase a Red Roof Inn, ruling two witnesses who asserted their Fifth Amendment rights outside of the jury's presence had no bearing on the jury's verdict.
-
January 24, 2025
Gordon Rees Expands Litigation Bench With Atlanta Partner
Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani LLP has added a former Gray Rust St. Amand Moffett & Brieske LLP partner in Atlanta, strengthening the firm's commercial litigation practice.
-
January 24, 2025
Lutnick Settles Chancery Suit Ahead Of Commerce Hearing
Billionaire Howard L. Lutnick, President Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of commerce, has settled a Delaware Court of Chancery derivative suit accusing the Newmark Inc. principal executive officer of "blowing smoke" around his part in a $500 million stock-value gain in order to receive a $50 million bonus.
-
January 24, 2025
GSA Taps Ex-BlackRock Atty As New GC
The General Services Administration has tapped Russell McGranahan, the former general counsel of Focus Financial Partners who held legal roles at BlackRock and in private practice for almost 30 years, as its next general counsel, according to a Friday announcement.
-
January 24, 2025
Taxation With Representation: Latham, Simpson Thacher
In this week's Taxation With Representation, a Brookfield private real estate fund acquires Divvy Homes' property portfolio and platform, Kantar Group proposes the sale of Kantar Media, and an Ares Management-led group buys a majority of Form Technologies Inc.'s common equity.
-
January 24, 2025
AT&T Unloads Copper Network Sites To Developer For $850M
AT&T said on Friday it has reached a sale leaseback agreement with New York real estate development firm Reign Capital netting the telecommunications company $850 million to unload 74 properties as it transitions to a fiber optic and wireless network instead of one reliant on copper.
-
January 24, 2025
Blackstone To Buy $1B Power Plant In Va. Data Center Mecca
Blackstone, advised by Kirkland & Ellis LLP, plans to purchase a natural gas power plant in Loudoun County, Virginia — a region known for having the biggest data center market in the world — for $1 billion from Latham & Watkins LLP-led Ares Management, according to a source familiar with the matter.
-
January 23, 2025
Conn. Lawmakers Target Healthcare After Hospital's Ch. 11
In the lead-up to and aftermath of California hospital operator Prospect Medical Holdings Inc.'s $1 billion bankruptcy, Connecticut lawmakers are considering new regulatory powers, promising and penning oversight bills for hospitals owned by private equity firms and real estate trusts while seeking to stabilize the state's healthcare markets.
-
January 23, 2025
Wells Fargo Prevails In $25M Mortgage Default Dispute
A Pennsylvania state court sided with Wells Fargo in a foreclosure suit accusing a Philadelphia property owner of defaulting on a nearly $25 million mortgage loan, finding the owner failed to abide by the loan agreement.
-
January 23, 2025
Rosenberg & Estis Adds NY Gov't Atty To Transactions Dept.
Rosenberg & Estis PC has hired Lisa S. Lim, the general counsel of the New York City Public Housing Preservation Trust, as a member of a city-focused development team that's part of the firm's transactions department.
-
January 23, 2025
Harrison Street Pulls In $600M For Data Center-Focused Fund
Harrison Street said Jan. 23 that it raised $600 million for the investment management firm's first dedicated pool of capital for digital infrastructure and plans to primarily target U.S. data center projects.
-
January 23, 2025
Corporate Transparency Law Remains Flanked By Threats
The Corporate Transparency Act is facing threats across the branches of government despite the U.S. Supreme Court pausing a nationwide injunction on it Thursday, with another universal injunction in place, other court battles underway and some Republican lawmakers targeting the law.
-
January 23, 2025
Kirkland Advises Blue Owl On $2.3B Texas Data Center Loan
Kirkland & Ellis LLP advised Blue Owl Capital in arranging a $2.3 billion loan to build a 206-megawatt, build-to-suit data center development in Abilene, Texas, a project with Crusoe Energy Systems and Primary Digital Infrastructure.
-
January 23, 2025
O'Melveny Hires Troutman Real Estate Atty, Board Member
O'Melveny & Myers LLP announced Jan. 23 it added a Dallas-based attorney from Troutman Pepper Locke LLP — who describes herself as a "dirt lawyer" advising property transactions, construction financing and other real estate matters — as a partner in its project development and real estate group.
-
January 23, 2025
Latham-Led Brookfield Buying Divvy Homes For $1B
A Brookfield private real estate fund has agreed to acquire Divvy Homes' property portfolio and platform for approximately $1 billion, with an expected close in mid-February, the companies announced Wednesday.
-
January 23, 2025
Freddie Mac Puts End To $32M SEC Probe Coverage Dispute
Freddie Mac told a D.C. federal court that it has reached a settlement with underwriters at Lloyd's of London, bringing an end to the government-backed mortgage lender's $32 million coverage suit stemming from civil actions and federal probes related to its collapse during the 2008 global financial crisis.
-
January 22, 2025
'Unicorn Prosecution' Could Upend Legal Practice, Court Told
Brown & Connery LLP partner William Tambussi told a New Jersey state judge Wednesday that the entire practice of law in the Garden State rests on his impending decision on the charges against him in the state's sweeping racketeering case targeting power broker George E. Norcross III, arguing that a lawyer has never been prosecuted for routine legal work.
-
January 22, 2025
J&J Seeks To Defeat $30M Punitive Bid After Conn. Talc Trial
Johnson & Johnson has blasted a bid requesting that it pay $30 million in punitive damages on top of a $15 million jury award to a real estate developer who allegedly contracted mesothelioma from the company's talc, telling a Connecticut state court that, "at most," it should pay $5 million.
-
January 22, 2025
How A Lawyer Saved His Home Office From The Eaton Fire
Dozens of Los Angeles County lawyers shared stories with Law360 of how the L.A. fires impacted their offices and practices, and one attorney recounted how he saved his home office from the Eaton blaze.
-
January 22, 2025
Hotel Guests Urge 3rd Circ. To Revive Algorithmic Pricing Suit
Guests accusing Atlantic City hotel-casino owners of inflating room rates by using the same software have told the Third Circuit that a lower court was wrong to rely on a similar case targeting room rates in Las Vegas when dismissing their claims.
-
January 22, 2025
Sotomayor Halts 2nd Circ. Ruling In Landmark Graft Case
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor halted a decision from the Second Circuit on Wednesday that would have set up a second trial against four men whose convictions were overturned in a landmark 2023 high court ruling in which the justices narrowed certain types of public corruption cases.
-
January 22, 2025
Full DC Circ. Stands By Wipeout Of FERC Pipeline Approvals
The D.C. Circuit has rejected Williams Cos.' requests to reconsider a panel's decision scrapping Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approvals of a five-state expansion of the company's Transco pipeline system, despite more than a half-dozen amicus parties backing the rehearing requests.
-
January 22, 2025
Greenberg Traurig Folds Digital Infrastructure Into RE Group
Greenberg Traurig LLP announced that the firm is merging its digital infrastructure, data center and cloud computing practice group into Greenberg Traurig's global real estate group, noting that the integration will allow it to better serve data center clients.
Expert Analysis
-
Hedging Variable Interest Rates In A Volatile Market
Variable rate loans, which were an advantageous borrowing method prior to the recent Federal Reserve rate hikes and subsequent volatility, are now the difference between borrowers remaining current on their obligations and defaulting due to the sharply increasing debt service requirements of their loans, say attorneys at Cassin & Cassin.
-
Parsing FTC's Intercontinental-Black Knight Merger Challenge
The Federal Trade Commission's recent Article III case challenging a merger between Intercontinental Exchange and Black Knight suggests the agency is using a structuralist approach to evaluate the merger's potential anti-competitive harm, says David Evans at Kelley Drye.
-
Effectual Relief Questions Linger After Section 363 Ruling
In the months since the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in MOAC Mall Holdings, courts and practitioners must grapple with the issue of what effectual relief courts may grant upon an appeal of an unstayed sale order, says Monique Jewett-Brewster at Hopkins Carley.
-
3 Alternatives To CRE Collateralized Loan Obligations
With current commercial real estate market conditions pushing issuers away from collateralized loan obligations, several Freddie Mac offerings should be considered as alternative exit strategies for mortgage loans secured by multifamily properties, say attorneys at Mayer Brown.
-
Ga. Banking Brief: All The Notable Compliance Updates In Q2
Legislation signed into law in the second quarter of the year in Georgia tackled a broad range of issues that will affect financial institutions, from money laundering and consumer protection to commercial financing disclosures and a lengthy cleanup of the banking and finance code, says Elizabeth Garner at Parker Hudson.
-
Sackett Ruling, 'Waters' Rule Fix Won't Dry Up Wetlands Suits
In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling in Sackett v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency narrowing the scope of Clean Water Act protections, the Biden administration is amending its rule defining "waters of the United States" — but the revised rule will inevitably face further court challenges, continuing the WOTUS legal saga indefinitely, say attorneys at Milbank.
-
Fla. Banking Brief: All The Notable Compliance Updates In Q2
Florida financial institutions must now navigate minimum interest rates for attorney trust accounts, restrictions on property sales to prohibited foreigners, and a ban on weighing environmental, social and governance factors to determine a customer's creditworthiness — changes that will add to banks' compliance pressures, says Patricia Hernandez at Avila Rodriguez.
-
NY, NJ Regs Give Clarity To Cannabis Investors, Ancillaries
Proposed laws and regulations in New York and New Jersey would clarify some previously murky legal waters, thus expanding the ability of investors, lenders and ancillary service providers to work with marijuana business in these states, say David Waxman and Heidi Urness at McGlinchey Stafford.
-
What To Expect From High Court's Whistleblower Case
The U.S. Supreme Court's upcoming decision in Murray v. UBS Securities will likely have widespread implications for the future of anti-retaliation whistleblower litigation, and could make it more difficult for would-be whistleblower-employees to succeed on anti-retaliation claims under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, say Ann-Elizabeth Ostrager and Diane McGimsey at Sullivan & Cromwell.
-
RICO Ruling Makes US More Attractive Foreign Creditor Forum
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Yegiazaryan v. Smagin, allowing a foreign plaintiff to use the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act to enforce a foreign arbitral award, will make judgment creditors more likely to seek out U.S. courts to remedy efforts to frustrate the enforcement of international arbitration awards, say attorneys at Paul Hastings.
-
5 Strategies For Restructuring Underperforming CRE Loans
With commercial real estate industry conditions expected to deteriorate further in the coming months, market participants should consider a number of strategies to help resolve challenged investments, ranging from financial restructurings to project phasing, say attorneys at Ballard Spahr.
-
Post-Ciminelli Predictions On Right-To-Control Convictions
The recent Second Circuit filings in Binday suggest that the government will fight to preserve its right-to-control convictions in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's Ciminelli decision, and offer clues about key issues that will drive post-Ciminelli litigation, say attorneys at Debevoise.
-
Steps To Success For Senior Associates
Excerpt from Practical Guidance
Adriana Paris at Rissman Barrett discusses the increased responsibilities and opportunities that becoming a senior associate brings and what attorneys in this role should prioritize to flourish in this stressful but rewarding next level in their careers.