Bankruptcy Blogs

The Goose That Laid the Federal Reserve Note

11/30/12

This newly-discovered, expanded version of Aesop's most famous fable bears an eerie resemblance to the modern day and sheds new light on its tragic moral.

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Right of Publicity as an Asset in Bankruptcy?

11/30/12

A quick post to announce that intellectual property scholar Jennifer Rothman has just published an article that engages with the bankruptcy treatment of the "right of publicity." Painting with the broadest brush, the piece questions the alienability of an identity-holder's right of publicity more generally, and concludes creditors should no

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The Daily Docket: Hostess Approved to Liquidate

11/30/12
The Republic/Associated Press

A judge gave Hostess Brands Inc.

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More Mortgage Suits, Troubled Britannia, Shrinking Citi

11/30/12

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Mortgage Morass, Continued: Bankers can be forgiven for mistaking the mortgage cops for a pack of raving hyenas that just won't end its pursuit. In the latest twist, the Justice Department argued Wednesday that the $25 billion mortgage settlement finalized earlier this year between the federal and state governments on one side and five big banks on the other doesn't buy Wells Fargo (WFC) immunity from being sued by the feds yet...

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Why Reputational Risk Is On the Rise

11/30/12

Banks today are struggling to pull together complaints data from multiple sources for analysis, resolution and reporting. There is also the challenge of interacting with customers, especially when something goes wrong.

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Credit Unions Too Small and Too Disciplined to Become TBTF

11/29/12

The average credit union is billions of dollars smaller than the behemoth banks. And the overall quality of credit union business loans is much higher than that of bank commercial loans.

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Where Are the Foreclosures?

11/29/12

Bloomberg has a story Foreclosure Wave Averted as Doomsayers Defied. I think it's a great example of defining deviancy downward. There's no question that we haven't seen a foreclosure tsunami in the wake of the federal-state servicing fraud settlement. But there was little reason to expect one and let's not lose sight of the big picture--foreclosure levels are still incredibly high. 

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Gift Cards and Bankruptcy

11/29/12

There's a linguistic irony that "gift" is the German word for poison. What, then, should we make of the "gift card"?  

Senator Richard Blumenthal's introduced new legislation, the Gift Card Consumer Protection Act (S.3636) that aims to close up the loopholes in existing gift card regulation and to protect consumers with gift cards when the retailer goes bankrupt. The legislation has a few moving parts:

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Lehman, MF Global Dominate October Claims Trading

11/29/12

October was a busy month for bankruptcy claims traders, dominated by the debt in the defunct financial firms of Lehman Brothers and MF Global.

According to a new report from claims-trading market operator SecondMarket, October saw 1,163 trades of $4.4 billion in claims. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and MF Global Inc. accounted for 867 of those trades and $3.79 billion of their dollar value.

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