This NY Times article reports on an interesting struggle that is developing within the American Civil Liberties Union board of directors.
I wonder whether the ACLU will represent the board members against the ACLU in protesting the ACLU’s attempt to chill their free speech rights? ;^)
This Law.com article reports on the avoidance lawsuits that the bankruptcy trustee of the former high tech law firm Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison is filing against the firm’s former partners for bonuses and a portion of the firm’s unpaid bank debt.
The key issues in pursuing former Brobck partners is when the firm became insolvent and whether partners took money out of the firm for inadequate consideration. Under the California Corporations Code, limited liability partnerships may make distributions to partners only when the total assets of the firm exceed liabilities.
The trustee contends that Brobeck’s income began to decline in 2000, a decline that accelerated during the second half of that year and continued until the firm tanked in September, 2003. Although Brobeck’s net per-partner income dropped to $245,000 for 2002, the trustee contends that Brobeck’s partners did not correspondingly reduce the distributions they received.
According to the trustee, in 2001 and 2002 alone, Brobeck’s partners spent more than $100 million more than the firm’s net income on partner distributions and leasehold improvements. Brobeck financed these excess distributions through debt, which increased from $34 million and $173,000 per partner in 2000 to $89 million and $505,000 per partner in 2002. In particular, the trustee asserts that Brobeck borrowed an additional $39 million on its credit line in the first quarter of 2002 and distributed over $43 million to its partners during the same time period.
Following Paul Gigot’s thoughts in this post from yesterday, Peggy Noonan writes this Opinion Journal op-ed today regarding President Bush’s Inaugural speech, in which she observes the following:
There were moments of eloquence: “America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies.” “We do not accept the existence of permanent tyranny because we do not accept the possibility of permanent slavery.” And, to the young people of our country, “You have seen that life is fragile, and evil is real, and courage triumphs.” They have, since 9/11, seen exactly that.
And yet such promising moments were followed by this, the ending of the speech. “Renewed in our strength — tested, but not weary — we are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom.”
This is — how else to put it? — over the top. It is the kind of sentence that makes you wonder if this White House did not, in the preparation period, have a case of what I have called in the past “mission inebriation.” A sense that there are few legitimate boundaries to the desires born in the goodness of their good hearts.
One wonders if they shouldn’t ease up, calm down, breathe deep, get more securely grounded. The most moving speeches summon us to the cause of what is actually possible. Perfection in the life of man on earth is not.
Along the same lines, David Ignatius of the Washington Post observes in this op-ed:
The late congressman Phil Burton of California used to say that government officials got in trouble when they began to believe that all the show and pomp of Washington was “for real.” By that, he meant that officials were led astray when they began to think it was about themselves and their party rather than the nation. That delusion is especially easy in a second term, after four years in the adulatory echo chamber of the capital. Just ask survivors of the Nixon administration.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Leticia Clark denied OAO Yukos‘ request Thursday to commence discovery in regard to its claims for damages against several international financial institutions and Russian entities pending a February 16th hearing on OAO Gazprom‘s motion to dismiss the Yukos chapter 11 case in Houston for lack of jurisdiction. Here are the previous posts on the Yukos saga.
Although the MSM heralds the decision as a setback to Yukos, it’s really not. Judge Clark recognizes that it is inefficient to allow expensive discovery to commence before she has decided whether the Bankruptcy Court has jurisdiction over the Yukos case. There will be plenty of time for discovery if she decides that Yukos’ chapter 11 case can move forward in the American bankruptcy system.
That’s really the big issue in the case — i.e., whether the acceptance of Western investment capital by Russian business interests will bring with it the corresponding risk of having such capital protected in the American civil justice and bankruptcy systems? If Judge Clark rules in favor of Yukos on that issue, how long will it be before the Russian government is hiring lobbyists to support Republican Congressional initiatives for tort and bankruptcy reform?