U.S. subsidiaries of Canadian parent Nortel Networks Corporation plopped into Delaware bankruptcy court today. NNC itself said it plans to file (and may have already filed) under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act. Blawgletter guesses that'll happen (or has happened) in Toronto, Ontario, site of NNC's headquarters.
A Nortel press releases says:
Nortel made this decision with
U.S. Circuit Judge Eric L. Clay (1948-).
Qui tam is short for the Latin phrase qui tam pro domino rege quam pro si ipso in hac parte sequitur, which means “who pursues this action on our Lord the King’s behalf as well as his own.” Vermont Agency of Natural Res. v. United States
Shazaam!
Our U.S. circuit judges — and their sitting by designation helpers — must've spent the holidays running Westlaw searches and tapping out judicial prose. For today the electronic opinionosphere fairly gushed a freshet of big, juicy, and momentous decisions.
In view of the abundance of material, Blawgletter offers even-briefer-than-usual blurbs (but still with links!):
Do the kings of credit default swaps make the suave Charles Ponzi look like a piker?
Blawgletter got a call not long ago from a former official of an institution that oversees pension and retirement fund investments. The impetus? The ex-official's conviction that the $58 trillion market for credit default swaps bears material, if not primary, responsibility for
The Fourth Circuit has upheld haling an Indian outfit into a Virginia federal court to answer claims that it misused a Virginia entity's intellectual property in the U.S.
The decision pivoted on the fact that the parties' relationship had its "genesis" in the Indian defendant's visit to the Charlottesville in 1984. The parties' ensuing License Agreement allowed the Institute
The Supreme Court of Texas today enforced a forum selection clause in contracts relating to business and tax consulting services. The clause said: "It is agreed that exclusive jurisdiction and venue shall vest in the Nineteenth Judicial District of Lake County, Illinois, Illinois law applying." A district court in Hidalgo County denied the consulting firm's
Rambo, Rambo, Rambo.
Two dairy farmers, husband and wife, filed a chapter 12 bankruptcy case after their efforts to expand their milking operations — with a new bank loan — proved unsuccessful. They worked out a reorganization plan, which the bankruptcy court confirmed, but later decided to dismiss, which they had an unwaivable right
John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946). He favored government intervention in the economy.
Most, probably, of our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as the result of animal spirits—a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as
The Fifth Circuit today upheld a Houston jury's conviction of former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling on multiple criminal fraud charges. But the court also vacated Skilling's sentence because, it determined, the trial judge made a (minor) error in enhancing the severity of Skilling's crimes under the Sentencing Guidelines. Skilling v. United States, No. 06-20885 (5th Cir.
Bankruptcy proceedings involve a high degree of uncertainty. The process, to Blawgletter's eye, resembles an all-out wrestling match — but one with potentially dozens of grapplers grunting and struggling to pin each other. These combatants, moreover, align, disalign, appear, and disappear as the bankruptcy moves towards completion. And deal-making (plus the occasional betrayal) seems a pre-eminent skill.