According to a story in Crain's New York a few days ago, the law firm Reed Smith is in talks to become the anchor tenant at the new development at 7 Bryant Park in Midtown Manhattan. Reed Smith currently occupies about 15% of 599 Lexington Avenue, an office building in Midtown East that backs $750 million in CMBS debt. That debt is split pari-passu across three deals: A $225 million loan in JPMCC 2007-CB19 (8.3% of the deal), a $225 million piece in JPMCC 2007-LDPX (6.1%...

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In 2010, the New Jersey Supreme Court created a qualified privilege for an employee taking documents to support an employment discrimination suit.1  However, this past December, in State of New Jersey v. Ivonne Saavedra,2 the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, ruled that the qualified privilege should not be applied to protect a criminal defendant from a grand jury indictment for “official misconduct” for having taken those documents to support a retaliatory discharge claim. Procedural History In November 2009, the defendant...

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New laws that went into effect on January 1, 2014, are a harbinger of what employers may expect to see in the coming year regarding workplace privacy: more restrictions on access to applicants’ and employees’ criminal history, credit information, and personal social media content.  To further complicate the challenges of addressing privacy in the workplace, employers will be required to grapple with next-generation issues raised by the use of social media as a business tool and the increasing adoption...

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DS-Concept Factoring, Inc., a global commercial finance company specializing in international non-recourse factoring, has provided a $20 million accounts receivable facility to a Dutch packaging manufacturer. As the client has operations in The Netherlands and United States and sells internationally, Euro, US Dollar, and GBP pound sterling factoring lines were required, and provided. DS-Concept was approached by the company to provide support for their growing sales and the significant customer sales concentration in their portfolio. DS-Concept was able to work alongside the...

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CMBS liquidation volume remained steady in January, but several large losses pushed the average loss severity up significantly. Liquidation volume registered $1.28 billion in January, equal to December's volume and slightly above the 12-month moving average of $1.19 billion. Of the loans that were liquidated, 94% fell into the greater than 2% loss severity category. January loss severity came in at 58.51%, up from December's 50.36% and more than 10 percentage points higher than the 12-month moving average of 46.82%....

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Ms. Fleur Pellerin, Minister Delegate for SMEs, Innovation and the Digital Economy, used an evening to celebrate the coming year with the French digital economy ecosystem to launch a call for proposals for “accredited digital cities”. This marks the first stage of the “La French Tech” initiative launched on December 2, 2013, backed by €200 million from the French government’s “National Investment Program”. During her speech to nearly 500 participants, Ms. Pellerin reminded the audience of the broad strategic outlines of...

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Cross-fertilizing its deep involvement in cross-border copyright regulations with its corporate advisory services, GRANITO announces its involvement in assisting clients in the management and protection of international video rights cross continents and within countries.  Faced with the need to protect and secure rights in a global entertainment marketplace and the right of producers, publishers and broadcasters of video and music to monitor the uploading of clips belonging to them, GRANITO brings to the forefront their talents for combining compliance with...

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When commenting on 2012 performance last year, we noted that investors could really only have one complaint: why didn't we own more? For investors to make money in 2013, they had to be more discriminating. While there were plenty of segments of the market that did well, there were also other segments that lagged severely. Some of the many issues that investors had to deal with in 2013 were: • The impending end (or tapering) of QE3 • Rising interest rates (after...

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The RTS clarify that an OTC derivative contract shall be considered as having a direct, substantial and foreseeable effect within the Union when “at least one third country counterparty benefits from a guarantee(i) provided by a financial counterparty(ii)  established in the Union which covers all or part of its liability resulting from that OTC derivative contract” to the extent that both of the following conditions are met by the guarantee: (a)    It covers the entire liability of a third country counterparty resulting...

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Normally we don't start taking a hard look at big CMBS leases until they get within a year of the lease expiration date. However this particular story caught our eye when we were looking at servicer watchlist notes for January. The loan is the $72.6 million Healthnet Headquarters note. The property is a 327,000 square foot office in Shelton, CT. Built in 1982 and renovated in 1989, the property was the home of Health Net of the Northeast. The firm is still...

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