News Topic: COVID-19

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Appraisal Institute issued guidance to its MAI appraisers regarding the new challenges and limitations on rendering an opinion of real estate value in the wake of a disaster when markets are unstable or chaotic ... Read full article

On May 13, 2020, the U.S. Department of Treasury ( Treasury ) and U.S. ... Read full article

Mitu Gulati and Mark Weidemaier We have been working on building a dataset of sovereign bonds and their contract terms. Given the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic--close to 100 countries have approached the IMF for assistance--we would not have ... Read full article

The U.S. Department of Treasury ( Treasury ) and U.S. ... Read full article

Mark Weidemaier & Mitu Gulati The sovereign debt world has been debating how to design an emergency debt standstill for the poorest nations, so that they can devote scarce resources to public health rather than debt service. As we’ve discussed on this ... Read full article

Today is the last day of National Financial Literacy Month. At a time when the economy has come to a grinding halt, it seems pertinent to talk about financial literacy, or, more accurately, the fallacy of financial education . ... Read full article

On April 28, 2020, U.S. Department of Treasury ( Treasury ) Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin and U.S. ... Read full article

$10 billion of CARES Act funds are going to the banks, especially megabanks, in fees for making “small” business PPP loans. The fees, paid by the Small Business Administration, i.e. Treasury, range from 1% for loans above $2 million to 5% for loans below ... Read full article

Many businesses may require bankruptcy proceedings to assist in recovery from the CV Recession. In my view, the best legal approach to any Chapter 11 reforms necessitated by the emerging CV-induced economic crisis lies in building up from the Small ... Read full article

On April 24, 2020, the U.S. ... Read full article

The Small Business Administration’s (“SBA”) Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) guarantees loans from qualified lenders to small businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic so that those businesses can keep workers employed.  In the Third Interim Final ... Read full article

Mitu and I posted some preliminary thoughts about the defense of necessity, which might be raised as a basis for allowing sovereign borrowers to defer debt service during the crisis. I wanted to follow up on some of the open issues. A few are technical, ... Read full article

Among the only certainties for the post-COVID lending world is the uncertainty of commercial real estate values.  Among the classes of real estate that surely will be immediately diminished in value are hospitality and most brick and mortar retail, but ... Read full article

Mark Weidemaier and Mitu Gulati ... Read full article

The Paycheck Protection Program (“ PPP ”), as enacted under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act , provides federally-guaranteed loans up to a maximum amount of $10 million to qualified businesses, which can be fully forgivable, ... Read full article

A sovereign debt standstill might not cure COVID-19, but it sure seems like the one thing we can all agree on. ... Read full article

On April 14, 2020, the U.S. ... Read full article

With the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been a lot of talk about a coming surge of consumer bankruptcy filings. In the very short-term, however, bankruptcy filing numbers are down. According to data from Epiq Systems , daily bankruptcy filings declined ... Read full article