On February 25, 2020, the United States Supreme Court in Rodriguez v. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation[1] struck down a judicial federal common law rule—known as the Bob Richards rule—that is used by courts to allocate tax refunds among members of a corporate affiliated group where the group does not have a written tax sharing agreement in place, or, at least in some federal Circuits, where an agreement fails to allocate the refunds unambiguously.
Key Notes:
On January 14, 2020, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a decision resolving the question of whether a motion for relief from the automatic stay constitutes a discrete dispute within the bankruptcy that creates a basis for a final appealable ruling, or whether it simply is a controversy that is part of the broader Chapter 11 case, such that appeals would not need to be taken until the conclusion of the Chapter 11 case.
Read Business Law Update to stay up-to-date on legal issues that impact public and private companies on a local, regional and global basis. Articles in this issue include:
Mergers & Acquisitions
Commercial Contracts
Small Businesses
Government Contracts
The oil and gas industry in the United States is highly dependent upon an intricate set of agreements that allow oil and gas to be gathered from privately owned land. Historically, the dedication language in oil and gas gathering agreements — through which the rights to the oil or gas in specified land are dedicated — was viewed as being a covenant that ran with the land. That view was put to the test during the wave of oil and gas exploration company bankruptcies that began in 2014.
Being in the cross-hairs of a client’s legal malpractice claim is a horrible-enough experience for any lawyer. Even worse would be if your house had to be sold in order to satisfy the former client’s default judgment against you, as the Seventh Circuit ordered in a case earlier this month.
Key Notes:
On February 25, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a decision holding that a trustee is not barred by either the presumption against extraterritoriality or by international comity principles from recovering property from a foreign subsequent transferee that received the property from a foreign initial transferee.