Nonrecourse financing is common in today's commercial real estate lending market. So too are the use of special purpose entities ("SPEs") and limited guaranties from SPE members of all or a portion of the debt, the latter of which may be triggered by the voluntary bankruptcy case of, or the consent to the entry of an order for relief in an involuntary bankruptcy case filed against, the SPE borrower.

The U.S. Constitution enjoins each state to accord “full faith and credit” to “the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State”. U.S. Const. Art. IV, § 1. However, a judgment creditor can’t directly enforce a judgment obtained in another state in California. The other state’s judgment must first be turned into a California judgment. The statutory mechanism for effecting this is the Sister State and Foreign Money—Judgments Act, aka the SSFMJA, Code Civ. Proc. § 1710.10 et seq.

For the last 27 years, bankruptcy courts in the Ninth Circuit consistently held that debt could not be recharacterized as equity unless the movant proved inequitable conduct by the debt holder. On April 30, 2013, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that precedent and joined other circuit courts in holding that bankruptcy courts do have the authority to recharacterize a loan as an equity investment to the extent allowed under state law even without inequitable conduct.

Last Friday, the jury in FDIC v. Van Dellem (C.D. Cal. Case No.

Stephens Media, LLC is the publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.  In 2009, Stephens Media filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court against Citihealth, L.L.C. alleging a variety of trademark related claims.  Citihealth failed to respond to the suit and Stephens Media filed a motion for a default judgment.  One of the co-owners of Citihealth then notified the court that Citihealth had dissolved and that he and the other co-owner filed for personal bankruptcy.  In ruling on the motion, U.S.

Real property receivers are most commonly appointed at the request of secured creditors who are often charged with the expenses of the receivership. However, secured creditors are not the only parties who may petition for the appointment of a real property receiver.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Trade Commission, and Commodities Futures Trading Commission often seek appointment of receivers in civil enforcement actions, including in actions alleging operation of Ponzi-like investment schemes. Receivers are generally tasked with taking over entities used to perpetrate schemes, conducting forensic accountings, reporting their findings to the appointing court, and recovering funds, where possible, for distribution to defrauded investors.

The fundamentals of corporate action can seem about as interesting as flossing.  Yet, the failure to attend to either is likely to result in unpleasant consequences as one lawyer recently discovered in Winterton v. Humitech of No. Cal., LLC, 2011 Bankr. LEXIS 4164 (9th Cir. BAP 2011).