In this issue, Monitor columnist Lesley Hawes provides the summary of the Marrama v. Citizen’s Bank of Massachusetts case and the Supreme Court’s decision detailing if a Chapter 7 debtor can transfer its case to a Chapter 13 or other proceeding if he/she acted in bad faith of the court, as well as the effects this ruling will have on future cases.... read more

July/August 2007

An industry with a myriad of finance structures and even more colorful names (such as split TRAC’s, first amendment, leveraged, synthetic, dirty, finance, put and security leases) has added another — the Equipment Finance Agreement (EFA). This installment discusses EFAs and their impact on the future of the industry.... read more

July/August 2007

Creditors are often faced with the dilemma as to whether they can recover their legal fees incurred in a bankruptcy once the lessee or debtor files a bankruptcy petition. In the Travelers’ case, the U.S. Supreme Court tackled the question as to whether a creditor may recover attorney’s fees authorized by a prepetition contract and incurred in postpetition litigation.... read more

May/June 2007

This edition discusses the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and its application on commercial leasing transactions. Although not a hot topic in the press, the FCRA still impacts commercial leasing transactions when credit reports are pulled from consumer reporting agencies. Those creditors that do not follow the FCRA can face legal consequences.... read more

May/June 2007

In this issue, Ken Weinberg discusses the Commercial Money Center, Inc. case, and the decision, which determined that payment intangibles are separate from the lease itself. The results of this case offer some recommendations funders may want to consider.... read more

March/April 2007

The arrival of 2007 was not very happy for the lenders who are the subject of two recent decisions. In opinions issued in the first two weeks of this year, the courts sent a strong message — don’t expect a sympathetic reception when you fail to perfect your security interests promptly.... read more

March/April 2007

This article addresses corporate fraud and malfeasance as a given in today’s business finance environment. Not that it is prevalent in every corporate financing transaction, or even in a majority or them — but when it is present in a company being financed or its management team, it is both costly and disruptive to the victim. The costs can be measured as real costs, opportunity costs and even brand dislocation or wasting.... read more

January/February 2007

Many lease agreements contain an “interim rent” provision enabling the lessor to charge for the use of the lease property for the time period between the actual acceptance date and the date on which the base term of the lease commences. Although interim rent is well established, it’s not specifically addressed in the UCC. Therefore, it’s valuable to have an understanding of how it’s used and how the courts enforce it.... read more

January/February 2007

Bad facts sometimes make for bad law. In recent litigation against assignees of leases, this has clearly been the case. This article discusses the recent California case of Wells Fargo Bank Minnesota, N.A. v. B.C.B.U. to illustrate how confusion can occur with parties from two different states following two different articles in the Commercial Code, and how courts deal with the conflicting Article 9 and Article 2A.... read more

January/February 2007

This edition of Dispatches discusses the “hell or high water” clause. Any lessor that has ever had to defend a claim of defective equipment should be aware of the various tricks counsel uses to avoid the infamous clause. This article uses Georgia’s Colonial Pacific case to provide a detailed analysis of such an attack. ... read more

January/February 2007