Bankruptcy Blogs

Bankers, Beware of Auditors Who Blow Off Their Regulator

10/25/11

Bank executives, audit committees and shareholders are at risk of additional scrutiny and unwelcome publicity under the best-case scenario - and audit failures under the worst case - if their auditor wages a protracted fight with the PCAOB.

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Dodgers Season-Ticket Holders Get Seats on Creditors Committee

10/25/11
Associated Press
Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt in a June 2010 file photo

Season-ticket holders abandoned their demand for an official committee of their own in the

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Do You Remember How Overdraft Protection, Overdraft Fees, and Free Checking Used To Work?

10/25/11

Calling everyone in the over-40 set to help me remember something. When dealing with those old-fashioned things called “checks,” how did your own overdraft protection used to work?  My recollection is that, back in the day, as long as a person had a certain level of creditworthiness, the bank used to cover your check in a discretionary manner.

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Bankruptcy Exemptions: The Wages of Benn (Part III)

10/25/11

In the on-going saga of Missouri bankruptcy exemptions, some apparently-settled debtor protections have recently been destabilized.  And this caused an apparent split among bankruptcy judges on at least some of these protections. Recently, this on-going evolution visited the daily wages of consumers.  Missouri has a law which protects a large portion of an individual’s income [...]

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Improper Ownership Of Life Insurance Policy Is Windfall For Creditors.

10/25/11

I saw another example of how sloppy financial and estate planning causes problems in bankruptcy. In this instance, a man took out a $100,000 life insurance policy on his own life. The man died at a time when he and his wife had substantial amounts of  credit card debt. The wife wanted to file bankruptcy. I explained to the  that the life insurance proceeds would be part of her bankruptcy estate if she were the insurance beneficiary.  I suggested that she collect the life insurance, but that she avoid filing bankruptcy.

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