Commercial
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July 30, 2024
Feds Must Maintain Center's EB-5 Status During Fee Dispute
A Montana federal judge ordered U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to maintain a regional center's designation to participate in the EB-5 investor visa program while he reviews claims that the agency moved to terminate its designation without proper notice.
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July 30, 2024
Texas Buildings Get $115M In Israeli Loans Amid Office Woes
Texas-based Westdale Properties America has secured a $115 million senior loan for three Texas buildings — two offices and one multifamily —backed by the Israeli bond market.
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July 30, 2024
Ropes & Gray Adds Partner To Int'l Tax Practice
Ropes & Gray LLP recently added a tax adviser with a wealth of experience navigating transactions, funds and investments for clients as a partner in its New York office, the firm said.
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July 30, 2024
Pot Cos. Can't Push RICO Claims Against Calif. City
A California federal judge has thrown out racketeering claims by six cannabis companies that accuse the city of Cudahy of illegally assessing fees, saying that because Congress listed cultivation and sale of cannabis under the definition of racketeering, they can't recover damages.
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July 30, 2024
Cos. Try To Kill Warehouse Competitors' Antitrust Suit
Several real estate companies are pushing an Illinois federal court to toss an antitrust suit that accuses them of blocking access to their warehouses in order to protect a monopoly over a Joliet, Illinois, intermodal facility used for transferring freight.
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July 29, 2024
Ky. Tower Sale Laundering Case Should Proceed, Judge Told
A Florida magistrate judge has recommended denying a bid by two Miami businessmen to toss litigation filed by the U.S. government looking to seize about $9.1 million from the sale of a Kentucky office tower over alleged ties to a Ukrainian money laundering scheme.
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July 29, 2024
Rialto, Blackstone Foreclosures Add Up On Signature Loans
A Rialto Capital Partners and Blackstone joint venture, which took over as servicer of a Signature Bank loan portfolio, has gone to court to claw back loans on various New York commercial properties — including an Art Deco landmark.
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July 29, 2024
BofA Mortgage Loan Officers Get Conditional Cert. In OT Suit
A group of mortgage loan officers who accused Bank of America of misclassifying the employees as overtime-exempt has cinched conditional collective certification, with a North Carolina federal judge rejecting the bank's arguments that their job duties were too different to merit certification.
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July 29, 2024
CIM Group Funds $2.1B Real Estate Investment Platform
Real estate and infrastructure owner CIM Group on Monday announced that it has provided financing for the formation of a $2.1 billion investment platform called Round Hill Capital Ventures, which has acquired contracts for the assets previously managed by Round Hill Capital.
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July 29, 2024
Realtor.com Parent Fights Uphill For CoStar Injunction
A California federal judge appeared skeptical Monday of a preliminary injunction request from Realtor.com's parent company seeking to block rival CoStar from misappropriating trade secrets and unlawfully accessing its computers, saying the alleged theft doesn't appear to involve a secret "formula" but rather website content.
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July 29, 2024
Mo. Menards Store Ruled Properly Valued At $17M
A Missouri Menards home improvement store was properly valued at $17 million by a county assessor because the store's appraiser failed to use comparable properties in his valuation, the state Tax Commission affirmed.
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July 29, 2024
Judge Ends Coverage Quest, Calls $2.7M Loss 'Foreseeable'
An Arizona federal judge granted a quick win to an insurer over $2.7 million in water damage losses claimed by an Arizona landlord, finding the losses were "foreseeable" and therefore not covered by the all-risk policy.
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July 29, 2024
Co. Denies Bid At 99 Cents Only Sale, Wants $1.5M Deposit
A California real estate entity urged a Delaware bankruptcy judge to let it reclaim all of a $1.5 million deposit it made in connection to the estate of 99 Cents Only, saying the money was required to attend an auction but the discount retailer is pretending the company won a bid for some of its property.
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July 29, 2024
Developer Stocks Up $300M To Buy Calif. Industrial Assets
Overton Moore raised $150 million in equity capital and brought its total acquisition capital to $300 million as it plans to acquire "well-located core" California industrial properties in the future, the industrial developer announced Monday.
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July 29, 2024
Clean Energy Tax Credit Sales Could Hit $25B, Report Says
Total sales of clean energy tax credits could reach as high as $20 billion to $25 billion this year, signaling a flourishing marketplace for credit sales authorized by the 2022 climate law, according to a midyear report released Monday by a climate tech startup firm.
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July 29, 2024
NYC Real Estate Week In Review
Romer Debbas and Marcus Attorneys are among the law firms that steered the largest New York City deeds that hit public records last week, a slow period that saw only five transactions north of $15 million become public.
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July 29, 2024
DC Taxes Due From Property Transfer Prior To Sale
A business that sold a commercial property in Washington, D.C., was properly assessed back taxes for a 2007 merger with a subsidiary, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals ruled.
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July 26, 2024
CFIUS Report Says More On Real Estate Than Meets The Eye
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States' latest report to Congress shows no significant change in the number of real estate-related cases the committee reviewed in 2023, but that does not mean properties weren't on the government's radar, attorneys say.
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July 26, 2024
Kuwait-Linked Firm Forecloses On $124.5M FiDi Office Loan
InterVest Capital Partners, a firm supported by Kuwait's public pension fund, has sued in New York state court to foreclose on a $124.5 million loan for a 47-story office tower at 30 Broad Street in New York's Financial District.
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July 26, 2024
DC Circ. Won't Stave Off Amtrak's Union Station Takeover
The D.C. Circuit on Friday rejected an emergency bid to stop Amtrak from taking control of Washington, D.C.'s Union Station, but did not dismiss the case outright, ruling that efforts to stop the eminent domain takeover appeared unlikely to succeed on appeal.
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July 26, 2024
Digital Realty Watches For Power Constraints On Projects
Digital Realty has its eye on the possibility that pressures on electrical networks might create delays for the company's pipeline of new data centers, the real estate investment trust's CEO said in an earnings call.
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July 26, 2024
Queens Class A Industrial Building Earns $85M In Financing
Marcus & Millichap affiliate IPA Capital Markets said it arranged $85 million in financing for a two-story Class A industrial property in Queens, New York.
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July 26, 2024
Robinson+Cole Adds Ex-Bose Atty To Mass. Real Estate Team
Robinson+Cole hired Kimberly A. Sigler, the former Bose Corp. assistant general counsel and a company director, as a partner for its real estate group in Boston, the firm announced.
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July 26, 2024
Ohio McDonald's Properly Valued At $1.9M, Board Says
An Ohio McDonald's was properly valued at $1.9 million by the county appraiser, the state Board of Tax Appeals ruled Friday, rejecting the business's bid to have the value lowered to $1.18 million.
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July 26, 2024
Real Estate Investment Firm Buys Miami Beach Retail Property
Torose Equities acquired an 8,700-square-foot, single-tenant retail property located at 910 Lincoln Road in Miami Beach, Florida, the real estate investment firm announced Friday.
Expert Analysis
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How Rate Exportation Is Shifting Amid Regulatory Trends
All banks and their partners, including fintechs, that wish to lend to borrowers in multiple states and charge uniform interest rates should heed regulatory developments across the country and determine how best to mitigate risks in their efforts to offer credit to consumers on a nationwide basis, say attorneys at Ballard Spahr.
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How The Commercial Real Estate Slump May Weigh On Banks
The continuing underperformance of the U.S. commercial real estate market has significant implications for the financial performance and disclosure requirements for various banks, especially regional ones with large debt exposures, say Atanu Saha and Yong Xu at StoneTurn.
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Negotiating Material Escalation In Construction Contracts
As material price escalation clauses have remained popular in construction contracts despite an easing of recent supply chain issues, attorneys representing owners should understand key considerations for negotiating such clauses, and strategies to mitigate potential exploitation by contractors, says H. Arthur Black II at Brooks Pierce.
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Landlords Should Prep As WeWork Faces Potential Ch. 11
After years of financial trouble and the recent announcement that it has substantial doubt that it would be able to continue as a going concern, WeWork may have a bankruptcy filing in its future that would have a significant impact on landlords and other stakeholders who are owed money by the company, say attorneys at Cadwalader.
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Identifying Trends And Tips In Litigation Financing Disclosure
Growing interest and controversy in litigation financing raise several salient concerns, but exploring recent compelled disclosure trends from courts around the country can help practitioners further their clients' interests, say Sean Callagy and Samuel Sokolsky at Arnold & Porter.
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Key Drivers Behind Widespread Adoption Of NAV Financing
While net asset value-based lending has existed for years, NAV lending has only started to move into the mainstream recently — likely due to difficult market conditions faced by sponsors including persistent inflation, high interest rates and a lack of exit opportunities, say Matthew Kerfoot and Jinyoung Joo at Proskauer.
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Conn. Ruling Highlights Keys To Certificate-Of-Need Appeals
The Connecticut Supreme Court's recent decision in High Watch Recovery Center v. Department of Public Health, rejecting rigid application of statutes concerning certificate-of-need procedure, provides important guidance on building an administrative record to support a finding that a case is contested, say attorneys at Robinson & Cole.
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The Pop Culture Docket: Judge Elrod On 'Jury Duty'
Though the mockumentary series “Jury Duty” features purposely outrageous characters, it offers a solemn lesson about the simple but brilliant design of the right to trial by jury, with an unwitting protagonist who even John Adams may have welcomed as an impartial foreperson, says Fifth Circuit Judge Jennifer Elrod.
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Pickleball Makes Waves In Fla. Real Estate, With Risks In Play
Pickleball's burgeoning popularity in Florida is catalyzing a transformation in the state's commercial real estate market, but investors must take steps to navigate legal challenges related to noise, insurance and community dynamics, says Emmanuelle Litvinov at DarrowEverett.
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4 Business-Building Strategies For Introvert Attorneys
Excerpt from Practical Guidance
Introverted lawyers can build client bases to rival their extroverted peers’ by adapting time-tested strategies for business development that can work for any personality — such as claiming a niche, networking for maximum impact, drawing on existing contacts and more, says Ronald Levine at Herrick Feinstein.
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What Calif. Pot Permit Ruling Means For Enviro Compliance
While a California appeals court's recent decision in Lucas v. City of Pomona affirms the city's use of a statutory exemption for its commercial cannabis overlay permit program, the ruling does not mean that all applicants seeking similar approvals are exempted from state environmental compliance obligations, say Whitney Hodges and Barbara Machado at Sheppard Mullin.
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Rare Reg A+ Fines Reflect New Era Of SEC Enforcement
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent announcement of civil penalties against 10 microcap companies for violations of Regulation A+ shows that as the SEC continues to expand its enforcement efforts, its focus remains on protecting investors of all sizes — including those investing in the historically less-scrutinized Reg A+ issuers, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.
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Factors To Consider When Structuring Data Center Contracts
Data center leases and service agreements grant very similar rights and impose similar obligations, but they also hold notable differences and a range of factors that are important to consider when selecting which form of agreement to use, say attorneys at Mayer Brown.