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Sale of land references: what has family law got to do with it

One of the more common matters heard by a district registrar is a reference made pursuant to s. 94 of the Court Order Enforcement Act, R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 78 (the "Act"), which provides: (1) If an order is made on an application under section 92, there must be included in the order a reference to a district registrar of the Supreme Court (a) to find what Lind is liable to be sold under the judgment, (b) to find what is the interest of the judgment debtor in the land and of his or her title to it, (c) to find

Executives may lose suits, but not all is lost for them

Targeted in dozens of lawsuits, former Enron Corp. executives face possible multimillion-dollar judgments that could far exceed their net worth. But hold the tears. Even if they lose big on every front, the execs get to keep their mansions, luxury cars, retirement income, any salary they earn and lots of other stuff. Dating to its 1876 Constitution, Texas has provided unique protection for debtors, especially rich ones. The law has been left virtually untouched, which explains why the list of valuables debtors can keep includes a couple of donkeys and two firearms. The idea is to allow those who made

Enron Executives May Lose Lawsuits, but Texas Law Helps Protect Assets

Targeted in dozens of lawsuits, former Enron Corp. executives face possible multimillion-dollar judgments that could far exceed their net worth. But hold the tears. Even if they lose big on every front, the execs get to keep their mansions, luxury cars, retirement income, any salary they earn and lots of other stuff. Dating to its 1876 Constitution, Texas has provided unique protection for debtors, especially rich ones. The law has been left virtually untouched, which explains why the list of valuables debtors can keep includes a couple of donkeys and two firearms. The idea is to allow those who made

What do I do with my judgment now

Effective October 1, 2001, the way money judgments are enforced in Florida is undergoing a sweeping revision, affecting everything from the manner of perfecting a lien on personal property to the duration of judgment liens and priorities among judgment creditors. (1) The changes apply to all stages of the judgment collection process, from entry to expiration, and affect existing judgments and judgment liens as well. Despite the significant changes which the new system will cause to debtor-creditor law, transactional practice, and the perfection of judgment liens on personal property, it has received surprisingly little publicity. It is the intent of

Where Did the Money Go

You win a big judgement, but the defendant has tucked his assets into an offshore account. Collecting will be a challenge. The accusations in the rape trial were sordid, even by Los Angeles standards. A woman we will call "Ms. X" said she met John Gordon Jones, an office supplies entrepreneur, at a nightclub in Hollywood. Ms. X, then 25, said that Jones laced her drink with a date-rape drug, then took her back in his limo to his home north of Beverly Hills. She awoke to find herself being sexually attacked, first by another woman and then by Jones. In

When Bankruptcy Meets Divorce

Just over two years ago, President George W. Bush signed the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) of 2005, which became effective Oct. 17, 2005. If you are getting divorced, this new bankruptcy law could concern you. Reason: While you may not realize it, in this country, our high divorce rate and bankruptcy commonly intersect. Here’s how. Until the enactment of the BAPCPA, the bankruptcy process was seen by some, and used by many, as a tool to permanently evade (or, to use bankruptcy terminology, “discharge”) family obligations foisted upon them by agreement or court order after a

Pre-Judgment Asset Freezes

As any experienced litigator knows, obtaining a large judgment against a defendant is only one step along the path toward actually recovering damages in a lawsuit. If that defendant has had the foresight to engage in timely, effective asset protection planning, then the path to ultimate recovery can be a long and rocky one. Many asset protection strategies involve the use of one or more offshore jurisdictions. Encountering asset protection strategies with offshore components can be particularly frustrating for creditors who have already invested substantial time and money to obtain a judgment. Certain offshore jurisdictions, especially those known as offshore

Debt collection 101 for small businesses.(RESOURCES * banking & finance)

Finding ways to ensure prompt payment is an age-old issue for businesses. From the earliest records, there has always been the tax collector and the debtor, so know that if you have clients in arrears, you are most assuredly not alone. By outlining the steps you can take to bring past due accounts current and even keep them as your clients during and after the collection process, you'll be better prepared to handle the situation should it arise. A word of warning before you make any attempts to collect on a debt: make sure you understand and...

Creditors of Portland, Ore.-Based Lodging Chain File Claim for Payment

Secured creditors in the Shilo Inns bankruptcy case want to collect more than $204 million in debt and unpaid fees from the Portland lodging chain's founder, Mark Hemstreet. In March, trusts representing several national banks filed lawsuits in state court against Hemstreet seeking debt repayment, but they revoked the claims when most of the Source : accessmylibrary.com

Advice of Investment Bank relied upon in the absence of contract

A judgment handed down on 13 June 2006 shows that investment banks may incur liability for negligent misstatement in respect of parties with whom they have no contractual relationship, even though they have a direct contractual relationship with another party....

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• WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 — With an eye toward the coming midterm elections, two Senate committees asked top government officials on Wednesday whether there was more Congress could do to clean up the options backdating scandal and rein in soaring executive pay. What they heard was that legislative action was only part of the solution — and that, for now, lawmakers should stay out of the way. “I think ultimately the issues will not need to be reformed by Congress,” Mark W. Everson, the Internal Revenue Service commissioner, told the Senate Finance Committee. “They will have to be reformed by American businesses.” Under a similar line of questioning, Linda Chatman Thomsen, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement director, told the panel that it might be “premature” to introduce government policies now that new accounting and disclosure rules were discouraging the manipulation of option grants and other forms of pay abuse. Their remarks came as the Senate Finance Committee used the concerns over the stock options scandal to examine other areas of executive pay. The Senate Banking Committee held separate hearings on the issue. So far, more than 120 companies have said they are being investigated by federal regulators or are conducting internal reviews of their option grant practices. They range from Silicon Valley technology companies to Fortune 500 concerns. In a filing with the S.E.C. Wednesday, for example, Home Depot disclosed that the United States attorney in Manhattan had requested information on its stock options practices. Backdating, which grants stock options at an earlier date to provide the executives and employees with built-in gains, is not necessarily illegal. But it does raise a host of accounting, disclosure and tax concerns, and can undermine the link between performance and pay. “This is not a victimless crime,” said Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, at the Senate Banking Committee hearing. “Could this be the Enron of 2006?” At the same hearing, Christopher C. Cox, the S.E.C. chairman, said that his agency “had the resources and was applying them” to deal with the more than 100 options manipulation cases. That number, he later told reporters, was growing even as investigators shed some cases, but might begin winding down next year. Federal securities regulators said they had taken action against companies and executives for fraudulent option practices as early as 2003. But Mr. Cox left the door open for the commission to pursue cases where options were granted to take advantage of an expected rise in share price from good news, and to bring charges against outside directors. Paul J. McNulty, the deputy United States attorney general, said that unlike in previous financial scandals, criminal wrongdoing by outside advisers, like auditors or law firms, was “less significant” in the cases being brought. The Senate appears to have embraced executive pay as an issue that could play well with voters. But with no bills in the works and the legislative session winding down, it is unclear how serious the latest bid for reform is. Moreover, no sitting corporate chief executive or their representatives were invited to testify. Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Senate Finance Committee chairman, said after the hearing that he remained intent on changing the performance-based pay rules to eliminate a ceiling on tax breaks for executive pay that inadvertently fueled stock option grants in the 1990’s. But he said he expected that it would be woven into a broader tax reform bill, not introduced as a stand-alone law. “Unless we get into tax stuff in the lame-duck session, it will be next year,” he said. Passing executive pay rules can be tricky. Business interest groups have long resisted efforts by lawmakers to tread into compensation issues, and recent bills on it have failed to win bipartisan support. A House Financial Services Committee bill, sponsored by Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat, that required broader disclosure of deferred compensation and called for a shareholder vote on executive pay and retirement plans went nowhere. Congress is also haunted by its past missteps. The 1993 tax law that Mr. Grassley hopes to change, for example, was aimed at curbing executive pay by requiring companies to pay taxes on all compensation for its top executives that exceeded a $1 million annual threshold — unless executives were awarded the extra compensation for meeting certain board-determined performance hurdles. Instead, the law led companies to raise their executives’ salaries to the $1 million limit and then dole out option grants in place of cash. “This tax law change deserves pride of place in the Museum of Unintended Consequences,” Mr. Cox said in prepared remarks to the Senate Banking Committee. Even if Congress did introduce reforms, several corporate governance experts told the committees that new tax or policy reform laws would not be enough. Boardroom cultures must also change, they said. “As long as boards are under the thumb of management, it has no impact,” Charles M. Elson, the director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, said after testifying before the Senate Finance Committee.
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