On Friday, the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance closed Bank of Ellijay, headquartered in Ellijay, Georgia, First Commerce Community Bank, headquartered in Douglasville, Georgia, and The Peoples Bank, headquartered in Winder, Georgia, and appointed the FDIC as receiver for each bank. The failed banks were not affiliated with one another.

On Friday, the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance closed ISN Bank, headquartered in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and appointed the FDIC as receiver for the bank.

CENTRAL STATES SOUTHEAST AND SOUTHWEST AREAS PENSION FUND v. O'NEILL BROS. TRANSFER & STORAGE (August 31, 2010)

On September 16, HM Treasury published its third consultation on new insolvency arrangements for investment firms. The consultation sets out the government’s final proposals for a special administration regime (SAR) for investment firms.

Introduction

After months of negotiations and conferences among key legislators, President Obama signed into law a final version of regulatory reform legislation on July 21, 2010. More than 2,000 pages long, the “Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act” (the Act) provides new legal guidelines for both “financial companies” and non-financial companies and instructs federal agencies to develop a myriad of regulations to enforce the concepts provided in the Act.

Given the overarching Madoff Ponzi scheme as well as other mini-Madoff schemes that surfaced in its wake, many have been following issues arising from the ability of a trustee to claw back transfers (either as preferential or as fraudulent transfers) from investors who redeemed their interests in a private investment fund or managed account that turned out to be a Ponzi scheme. The law generally provides that an investor’s principal investment is protected so long as it is received in good faith and for value.

Suppose a retailer declares bankruptcy. Several of its leases are sold off to another retail chain, which then remodels the stores, stocks them with its own merchandise, and opens them under its own name. If this retailer hires some of the bankrupt company's employees, are those employees new hires under the FMLA, or might they have the right to take FMLA leave immediately, without waiting 12 months or working 1250 hours for the new company?

The Indiana Court of Appeals ruled on an issue of first impression inGreen Tree Servicing, LLC v. Brough, 930 N.E.2d 1238 (Ind. Ct. App. 2010) that arbitration provisions in consumer loan agreements survive discharge in the borrower’s bankruptcy proceeding.

A company facing a rash of tort lawsuits may try to use a dormant subsidiary’s bankruptcy as a tool to limit its exposure. That’s what Pfizer tried to do, and a New York bankruptcy judge sent them packing. This case is a warning to corporate parents that courts will not allow them to manipulate the process to use the bankruptcies of subsidiaries to further their own agendas. If you’re a creditor you can use this case as ammunition in reorganization disputes to show bad faith. Read on for a quick summary of what happened in the Pfizer case, and what you can learn from it.