Free Republic

An explosive, anonymous letter has shaken the legal departments in the US, alleging a conflict of interest at the heart of Houston’s bankruptcy court. The letter, which surfaced in March 2021, accuses US Bankruptcy Judge David R Jones of maintaining a romantic relationship with Elizabeth Freeman, a prominent attorney at Jackson Walker and co-counsel for Kirkland & Ellis in billion-dollar cases overseen by Jones, reported The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). According to WSJ, the allegations suggest that Freeman’s involvement in cases before Jones was influenced by their personal relationship, potentially compromising the impartiality of court rulings affecting numerous stakeholders. Known...

Many in the virtual currency industry have been confused and bedeviled by the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) gradual and ill-explained encroachment on their world, with frequent claims from SEC Chair Gary Gensler that most cryptocurrencies should be properly seen legally as "securities" that ought to be regulated by his agency. That would potentially make lots of legit businesses suddenly illegal dealers in "unregistered securities." In a decision last week in an ongoing bankruptcy case of Voyager Digital Holdings, U.S. bankruptcy Judge Michael E. Wiles in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York laid into SEC...

First in Detroit, then in Stockton, Calif., and now in New Jersey, judges and other top officials are challenging the widespread belief that public pensions are untouchable. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey delivered the latest blow on Tuesday, when he proposed to freeze that state’s public pension plans and move workers into new ones intended not to overwhelm future budgets or impose open-ended demands on taxpayers. The first crack came in Detroit, where a judge ruled that public pensions could, in fact, be reduced, at least in bankruptcy. Then, just a few weeks ago, an opinion by the bankruptcy...

When Vancouver-based 360Networks Inc. faced insolvency and opted for bankruptcy protection in June 2001, CFO Vanessa Wittman quickly realized that not all workouts are created equal. The filing, for example, caused the company to shut down fledgling operations in Asia and triggered liquidations of its assets throughout Europe--most notably networks it had gained through swaps with other telecom providers. Only in the United States and Canada was the company able to work with the courts to restructure without being forced to liquidate. Outside of those two countries, says Wittman, "the most developed sense of a bankruptcy procedure is in the...