Court Watch
Highlights of the latest franchising cases from around the country.
News Briefs
Highlights of the latest franchising news from around the country.
Features
Plan Ahead: Third Circuit Denies Tax Exemption for Asset Sales Made Before Chapter 11 Plan
It has been often said that Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code can be summarized as the "Three Rs," precisely "reorganize, restructure, and rehabilitate." In practicality, this includes steps such as "reducing headcount," (firing people, without the euphemism), streamlining operations, reordering debt, and so on. One of the most critical components of such lifesaving steps is the divestiture of assets, in plain English, selling off assets that are either unprofitable and unwanted burdens or those items that can fetch high prices that can add quickly to the cash reserves of a troubled company.
In the Marketplace
Highlights of the latest equipment leasing news from around the country.
Features
A Practical Guide to Software Leasing
Although the demand for software financing and leasing continues to grow at a tremendous rate, software financing and leasing remains one of the most challenging and least understood areas of leasing. The focus of this article is on the financing and leasing of 100% software, although there is some discussion of mixed leases of equipment and software. The goal is to provide lessors with a practical guide to the issues arising in a typical software financing or leasing transaction. The emphasis is on direct leases between a lessor and a lessee, as opposed to a vendor finance arrangement where the software licensor is also a party.
Uneven, But Positive Net Results for Leasing Industry at Midyear
Consistent with the turbulent and uneven economy as a whole, the up and down results contained in the Equipment Leasing Association's Quarterly Performance Indicators Report (PIR) for the second quarter of 2003 should not come as much of a surprise. In the final analysis, industry members should take solace in the fact that while it has been a fairly wild past 12 months, there has been a net gain in two of the most important indicators: Total Net Portfolio and Total New Business. Certain other indicators, however, produced more mixed results. Specifically, employment in the industry is down while charge-offs are up when compared with the figures from the second quarter of 2002.
Features
<b>Decision of Note</b> <b>Web Streaming of Film Clips Not Fair Use</b>
The U.S Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit decided that the unlicensed streaming on the Internet of two-minute clips from Walt Disney films didn't constitute fair use.
Courthouse Steps
Recently filed cases in entertainment law, straight from the steps of the Los Angeles Superior Court.
Features
<b><i>Clause & Effect</b></i>Challenges in Drafting Clauses to Arbitrate
Parties to entertainment industry agreements often include a provision for the arbitration of contract disputes. This may be motivated by the lower cost and less formality than court proceedings that arbitration can offer, as well as the ability to keep arbitrated disputes out of public view. But the simple language of an arbitration clause can lead to challenges over whether the arbitration process was proper.
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- Bankruptcy Sales: Finding a Diamond In the RoughThere 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.Read More ›
- The DOJ's New Parameters for Evaluating Corporate Compliance ProgramsThe parameters set forth in the DOJ's memorandum have implications not only for the government's evaluation of compliance programs in the context of criminal charging decisions, but also for how defense counsel structure their conference-room advocacy seeking declinations or lesser sanctions in both criminal and civil investigations.Read More ›
- Use of Deferred Prosecution Agreements In White Collar InvestigationsThis article discusses the practical and policy reasons for the use of DPAs and NPAs in white-collar criminal investigations, and considers the NDAA's new reporting provision and its relationship with other efforts to enhance transparency in DOJ decision-making.Read More ›
- Supreme Court Asked to Assess Per Se Rule Tension in Criminal AntitrustIn recent years, practitioners have observed a tension between criminal enforcement of the broadly written terms of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 and the modern Supreme Court's notions of statutory interpretation and due process in the criminal law context. A certiorari petition filed in late August in Sanchez et al. v. United States, asks the Supreme Court to address this tension, as embodied in the judge-made per se rule.Read More ›
- Restrictive Covenants Meet the Telecommunications Act of 1996Congress enacted the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to encourage development of telecommunications technologies, and in particular, to facilitate growth of the wireless telephone industry. The statute's provisions on pre-emption of state and local regulation have been frequently litigated. Last month, however, the Court of Appeals, in <i>Chambers v. Old Stone Hill Road Associates (see infra<i>, p. 7) faced an issue of first impression: Can neighboring landowners invoke private restrictive covenants to prevent construction of a cellular telephone tower? The court upheld the restrictive covenants, recognizing that the federal statute was designed to reduce state and local regulation of cell phone facilities, not to alter rights created by private agreement.Read More ›
