It is with great pleasure that I welcome Professor Jay L. Westbrook of the University of Texas as a guest blogger for Credit Slips . To people in the bankruptcy community, Professor Westbrook needs no introduction. He is a leader in both international ... Read full article
MBS investors suffered a serious legal blow a couple of months back when the Second Circuit held that the Trust Indenture Act of 1939 doesn't apply to MBS . ... Read full article
How is it that I never find the time to blog? My answer would be that I simply do not have the time. But of course I have the same hours in a day as my co-bloggers. I could argue that I have more demands on my time, but I know very well that we are all ... Read full article
The data breach stories just don't seem to stop. (And why would they?). The latest (I think) is about a massive and sophisticated multi-million dollar hacking of several banks . If you read down through the story, one of the things the hackers did ... Read full article
Credit Slips contributor Pamela Foohey has just posted her most recent work in her series of articles on churches in bankruptcy. I have been a big fan of this research project since Pamela was a fellow at the University of Illinois. She tells us not only ... Read full article
I woke up this morning to see an abstract of a paper entitled Is Regulation to Blame for the Decline in American Entrepreneurship? When I saw that one of the co-authors was on the George Mason University economics faculty, I said to myself, " ... Read full article
I feel compelled to share this sad but not unexpected filing . I hope he will not run into any trouble under section 523(a)(9). ... Read full article
As previously predicted , and in light of recent events, legislation has been reintroduced to allow Puerto Rico's municipalities into chapter 9 . ... Read full article
Community banks are ailing. Over the past decade many of them have failed or been gobbled up by larger banks. What's going on? ... Read full article
Empirical economic analysis is a powerful tool. It can elucidate correlations and sometimes even get us to causual explanations. But it has a serious weak-spot: its value is entirely dependent upon the integrity of the data analyzed. To put the problem ... Read full article
As Melissa has noted , the district court has ruled that Puerto Rico's Recovery Act is preempted by the Bankruptcy Code, among other things. I want to amplify one point that she made in her post. ... Read full article
Credit Slips thanks Michelle Harner for guest blogging. She shared her own personal views about reforms for chapter 11. Although Harner was here in her personal capacity and speaking only for herself, her role as the reporter for the American Bankruptcy ... Read full article
While I'm on the subject of dead markets, what about HOEPA loans? HOEPA loans are super-high-cost loans that qualify for special consumer protections under the Home Owners Equity Protection Act of 1998. (Yes, that's the one that directed that ... Read full article
Pretty darn dead. In 2014, there were all of 22 private-label RMBS deals. These deals provided $5.67 billion in financing for 7,342 mortgages. Let that sink in for a second. The private-label market financed fewer home mortgages than were made in the ... Read full article
I just finished discussing the “random walk” theory in my Corporate Finance class, so I thought I would close out my stint on Credit Slips with some “random thoughts” on reform. ... Read full article
I want to take up Michelle Harner's call for "innovation and new approaches to valuation" . Valuation may well be the most important issue in bankruptcy, and it is also the issue that is least subject to meaningful judicial review. ... Read full article
