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Navigating Your Lease Through a Sea of Liens
Equipment lenders and lessors face specialized issues when the asset is a vessel. How is the lender secured in its collateral? Can a lessor be secured in a vessel titled in lessor's name? How does a lessor perfect its security interest in the vessel? Where does the lessor stand in relation to competing creditors? This article addresses these questions within the U.S. legal system and describes proposed legislation to expand opportunities for lease financing of vessels.
Creditors who rely on vessels to secure debt must be concerned with the legal environment in which the vessels operate. For centuries, if not millennia, a vessel has been regarded as a separate legal entity apart from its owner. The vessel can incur debts and obligations independent of its owner. In the United States, when a supplier provides fuel (known as 'bunkers') to a vessel, the vessel itself is liable for payment. By operation of U.S. admiralty law, the supplier has a maritime lien against the vessel to secure payment. The same is true for repair yards, stevedores, the master and crew, and other providers of goods and services directly to the vessel. If the vessel causes harm, the injured party may have a maritime tort lien against the vessel to secure its claim. A maritime lien claimant may bring an action against the vessel without suing or even bringing a claim against the owner. Modern federal law has long incorporated, and often refined, these historic maritime lien concepts. Today they are reflected in the provisions of 46 U.S.C. Chapter 313 and an extensive body of U.S. case law.
Why So Many Great Lawyers Stink at Business Development and What Law Firms Are Doing About It
Why is it that those who are best skilled at advocating for others are ill-equipped at advocating for their own skills and what to do about it?
Bankruptcy Sales: Finding a Diamond In the Rough
There is no efficient market for the sale of bankruptcy assets. Inefficient markets yield a transactional drag, potentially dampening the ability of debtors and trustees to maximize value for creditors. This article identifies ways in which investors may more easily discover bankruptcy asset sales.
The DOJ's Corporate Enforcement Policy: One Year Later
The DOJ's Criminal Division issued three declinations since the issuance of the revised CEP a year ago. Review of these cases gives insight into DOJ's implementation of the new policy in practice.
A Lawyer's System for Active Reading
Active reading comprises many daily tasks lawyers engage in, including highlighting, annotating, note taking, comparing and searching texts. It demands more than flipping or turning pages.
Protecting Innovation in the Cyber World from Patent Trolls
With trillions of dollars to keep watch over, the last thing we need is the distraction of costly litigation brought on by patent assertion entities (PAEs or "patent trolls"), companies that don't make any products but instead seek royalties by asserting their patents against those who do make products.