Commercial
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May 22, 2024
CBRE Calls Exec's Noncompete Right Fit In A Small World
A Texas appellate court wondered Wednesday whether a temporary injunction that seemingly bars a former CBRE executive from working in his trade anywhere in the world goes too far, and questioned the validity of the underlying noncompete agreement at the center of the legal battle.
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May 22, 2024
Ill. Justices Weigh Zurich's Right To Recover $3M Flood Loss
The Illinois Supreme Court weighed Wednesday whether Zurich American Insurance Co. can recoup $3 million from a subcontractor for water damage repair costs the insurer paid to a general contractor despite Zurich filing suit on behalf of a different insured.
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May 22, 2024
FDIC Eyes 'Weak' Office, Mall Assets In Risk Assessment
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. deemed office and retail mall asset classes 2023's "weak" points among the otherwise resilient commercial real estate property types, in a Wednesday report summarizing risks facing FDIC-insured institutions.
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May 22, 2024
Real Estate Firm Buys Manhattan Retail Property For $180M
TZ Capital scooped up a luxury retail property on Madison Ave. for $180 million — nearly $100 million less than what the building last traded for, per a source familiar with the deal Wednesday — in a move that comes as midtown Manhattan's retail market sees growing deal and leasing activity.
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May 22, 2024
Chancery Keeps RedBird-Brookfield Dispute Stay In Place
A Delaware vice chancellor declined Wednesday to rule from the bench on a preliminary injunction sought by Redbird Capital Partners in a dispute over a Brookfield Infrastructure Partners claim for a $150 million escrow included in its $5.7 billion purchase of RedBird data center projects last year.
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May 22, 2024
Texas Billionaires Building $7B City After Finding Aquifer
The wealthy Walker family will put down $1.6 billion in cash over the next 30 years to build their own self-sufficient city after discovering access to an underground aquifer can provide more than enough water for the project, sitting 20 miles north of Laredo, Texas.
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May 22, 2024
Croke Fairchild Hires 2 Real Estate Attys For Chicago Office
Croke Fairchild Duarte & Beres LLC hired Penelope Campbell and Ari Krigel as partners for its real estate practice in Chicago, the firm announced.
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May 22, 2024
Sullivan & Cromwell Atty Urges Cos. To Tend To Climate Data
Public companies should not expect stakeholder concerns over climate risk to go away, even though litigation has cast a fog of uncertainty over certain disclosure rules, a Sullivan & Cromwell lawyer said Wednesday at a panel on the topic.
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May 22, 2024
Realty Firm Seeks Early Win In Law Firm's Suit Over Lease
Real estate brokerage Cushman & Wakefield of Texas Inc. has urged a Texas state court to grant it an early win against law firm Polunsky Beitel & Green LLP in a suit alleging that Polunsky Beitel is wrongfully going to lose its sublease for a Houston commercial office building that will now be converted into a residential building.
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May 22, 2024
Wells Fargo Wants Receivership For Hotels After $52M Default
Wells Fargo has sued American Hotel Income Properties REIT Inc. in New York federal court, claiming that the real estate investment trust's hotels should be placed into a court-ordered receivership after the REIT's affiliates defaulted on a $52.4 million loan.
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May 22, 2024
DC Empty Building Not Eligible For Tax Exemption, Court Says
The owner of a vacant building in Washington, D.C., can't claim an exemption from the district's vacant building property tax rate because the owner claimed the exemption outside the allowed two-year period, the district's highest court ruled.
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May 22, 2024
NJ Atty Faces Fla. Suspension Over Sale Of $1.6M Painting
An attorney suspended for one year in New Jersey last year for smuggling a $1.6 million painting out of his house to avoid an asset sale has agreed to a guilty plea accepting another yearlong suspension in Florida related to the scheme.
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May 22, 2024
Prologis Legal Chief To Step Down At The End Of 2024
Prologis Inc.'s chief legal officer will retire and transition to a senior adviser role starting in January, the logistics-focused real estate investment trust said Wednesday, and another member of its legal team has been tapped to fill the position.
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May 22, 2024
SC Expands Abandoned Building Credit, Adds Railroad Credit
South Carolina expanded its tax credit for the revitalization of abandoned buildings and provided an income tax credit for railroad reconstruction under a bill signed by the governor.
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May 22, 2024
Goodwin Real Estate Atty Eyes Gov't Role In Adaptive Reuse
Investors considering converting office buildings to a residential use are increasingly seeking more assistance from and collaboration with governments, one of Goodwin's real estate leaders told Law360 in a recent interview.
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May 21, 2024
Quarry Not Liable For Dirt Bike Accident, NJ Panel Says
The owner of a New Jersey quarry long used by all-terrain vehicle enthusiasts cannot be held liable for injuries a dirt biker sustained after he struck a steel cable on the property, a state appeals court has ruled, saying the landowner installed the cable for legitimate, not malicious, purposes.
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May 21, 2024
Bankrupt SVB Fights To Keep $1.9B Suit Against FDIC Alive
The bankrupt former parent company of Silicon Valley Bank urged a California federal judge on Tuesday not to toss its suit against the Financial Deposit Insurance Corp. that seeks to get the deposit insurer to return $1.93 billion, saying the FDIC has not fulfilled its obligation to turn over the company's account funds.
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May 21, 2024
22 States Tell 11th Circ. Corp. Transparency Act Goes Too Far
The federal Corporate Transparency Act unconstitutionally displaces state authority and its enforcement would economically harm states and their residents, attorneys general from 22 states told the Eleventh Circuit, urging it to uphold a ruling that struck down the law.
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May 21, 2024
Variety Of Cases Propelled Rise In New Jersey Ch. 11 Filings
The cases that have made the New Jersey bankruptcy court the second busiest in the nation have run the gamut from nationwide retail chains, major real estate players and Johnson & Johnson's mass tort talc spinoff to genetic labs and cryptocurrency platforms.
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May 21, 2024
Tremont Chicago Hotel Lender Calls For End To Ch. 11 Case
Citing a bankrupt owner's lack of equity and longstanding defaults, the senior secured creditor to Chicago's defunct former Tremont Hotel has asked a Delaware bankruptcy judge to dismiss the case or lift its Chapter 11 automatic stay.
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May 21, 2024
Calif. City Sued Over Botched $8.8M Hotel Sale
A hotel operator has accused Anderson, California, of sabotaging a signed $8.8 million purchase offer and other contracts for the company's local hotel by red-tagging the property, and also impeding remodeling efforts because the operator's manager and president are both foreigners.
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May 21, 2024
Boston Eateries Say They've Shown Proof Of Anti-Italian Bias
A group of restaurant owners in Boston's North End, the city's version of "Little Italy," reinforced their argument to a federal judge that anti-Italian bias was behind an on-street outdoor dining ban in the neighborhood.
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May 21, 2024
Strategic Hiring Was The New Normal For BigLaw In 2023
The 400 largest law firms by headcount in the U.S. grew more slowly in 2023 than in the previous two years, while Kirkland & Ellis LLP surpassed the 3,000-attorney threshold, according to the latest Law360 ranking.
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May 21, 2024
The Law360 400: Tracking The Largest US Law Firms
The legal market expanded more tentatively in 2023 than in previous years amid a slowdown in demand for legal services, especially in transactions, an area that has been sluggish but is expected to quicken in the near future.
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May 20, 2024
CoStar, Hotel Giants Defend Benchmarking In Price-Fixing Suit
CoStar Group Inc. and a contingent of big-name hotels have asked a Washington federal judge to toss an antitrust lawsuit claiming the hotel operators share industry analytics to inflate luxury hotel room prices, arguing the proposed class action is riddled with legal defects.
Soured Partnership Tanks Dallas Tower Weakened By COVID
In the fourth story in a series on distressed office properties in various U.S. markets, Law360 Real Estate Authority examines how a solid office building in an otherwise strong market — Dallas' Uptown — started showing cracks from COVID-19 and controversy.
Simpson Thacher Leads Blackstone In $705M Biltmore Sale
Blackstone said Monday it has closed the sale of the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix to private equity real estate firm Henderson Park for $705 million, confirming January reports that the transaction was under contract and revealing Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP and Jones Day as counsel behind the deal.
Inside Proxy Fight That (Briefly) Ousted Hotel REIT Exec
Here, Law360 Real Estate Authority recounts the litigious proxy fight following a failed purchase offer from an activist investor questioning the relationship of two Texas real estate investment trusts, which led to the chairman and a director being ousted for a matter of hours before being reappointed.
Expert Analysis
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Ga. Law Creates Challenges For Foreign Ownership Of Land
Under Georgia's new law limiting certain foreign possessory interests in agricultural land and land near military properties, affected foreign persons and entities will need to do significantly more work in order to ensure that their ownership remains legal, say Nellie Sullivan and Lindsey Grubbs at Holland & Knight.
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Questions Remain After Mass. Adverse Possession Case
A recent Massachusetts Land Court decision, concerning an adverse possession claim on a family company-owned property, leaves open questions about potential applicability to closely held corporations and other ownership types going forward, says Brad Hickey at DarrowEverett.
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4 Takeaways From Biden's Crypto Mining Divestment Order
A May 13 executive order prohibiting the acquisition of real estate by a foreign investor on national security grounds — an enforcement first — shows the importance of understanding how the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States might profile cross-border transactions, even those that are non-notified, say attorneys at Kirkland.
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Insurer Quota-Sharing Lessons From $112M Bad Faith Verdict
In Indiana GRQ v. American Guarantee and Liability Insurance, an Indiana federal jury recently issued a landmark $112 million bad faith verdict, illustrating why insurers must understand the interplay between bad faith law and quota-sharing before entering into these relatively new arrangements, say Jason Reichlyn and Christopher Sakauye at Dykema.
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Teaching Yoga Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Being a yoga instructor has helped me develop my confidence and authenticity, as well as stress management and people skills — all of which have crossed over into my career as an attorney, says Laura Gongaware at Clyde & Co.
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A Look At New IRS Rules For Domestically Controlled REITs
The Internal Revenue Services' finalized Treasury Regulations addressing whether real estate investment trusts qualify as domestically controlled adopt the basic structure of previous proposals, but certain new and modified rules may mitigate the regulations' impact, say attorneys at Simpson Thacher.
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How New Rule Would Change CFIUS Enforcement Powers
Before the May 15 comment deadline, companies may want to weigh in on proposed regulatory changes to enforcement and mitigation tools at the disposal of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, including broadened subpoena powers, difficult new mitigation timelines and higher maximum penalties, say attorneys at Venable.
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Swimming Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Years of participation in swimming events, especially in the open water, have proven to be ideal preparation for appellate arguments in court — just as you must put your trust in the ocean when competing in a swim event, you must do the same with the judicial process, says John Kulewicz at Vorys.
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2nd Circ. Eminent Domain Ruling Empowers Municipalities
The Second Circuit's recent decision in Brinkmann v. Town of Southold, finding that a pretextual taking does not violate the Fifth Amendment's takings clause, gives municipalities a powerful tool with which to block unwanted development projects, even in bad faith, say James O'Connor and Benjamin Sugarman at Phillips Lytle.
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SEC Should Be Allowed To Equip Investors With Climate Info
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's new rule to require more climate-related disclosures will provide investors with much-needed clarity, despite opponents' attempts to challenge the rule with misused legal arguments, say Sarah Goetz at Democracy Forward and Cynthia Hanawalt at Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change.
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How EB-5 Regional Centers Can Prepare For USCIS Audits
In response to the recently announced U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services guidelines that require EB-5 regional center audits every five years to verify their compliance with immigration and securities laws, regional centers should take steps to facilitate a seamless audit process, say Jennifer Hermansky and Miriam Thompson at Greenberg Traurig.
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Understanding The IRC's Excessive Refund Claim Penalty
Taxpayers considering protective refund claims pending resolution of major questions in tax cases like Moore v. U.S., which is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, should understand how doing so may also leave them vulnerable to an excessive refund claim penalty under Internal Revenue Code Section 6676, say attorneys at McDermott.
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Bankruptcy Ruling Shifts Lease Rejection Claim Calculation
A New York federal court’s recent ruling in In re: Cortlandt provides guidance on how to calculate a landlord's damages claim when a bankruptcy debtor rejects a lease, changing from an approach that considers the remaining rent due under the lease to one that considers the remaining time, say Bethany Simmons and Noah Weingarten at Loeb & Loeb.