August 2022

Alex Jones’ company ‘fabricated’ debt, Sandy Hook families say

Sandy Hook families suing Alex Jones for damages after the Infowars host was held liable for defamation have accused him of playing a complex financial shell game in an attempt to avoid paying, according to a new objection they filed in federal bankruptcy court.

The families objected to Jones’ company’s request for the court to authorize the use of cash collateral to “pay reasonable and necessary operating expenses.”

The objection alleges that the debt is based on a “fabricated, allegedly secured loan from an affiliated, insider entity of the debtor, PQPR,” attorneys wrote in their objection filed Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court Southern District of Texas on behalf of the Sandy Hook families involved in the three defamation cases against Jones in Connecticut and Texas, as well as a Norwalk man he defamed over the Parkland, Fla. shooting.Last week, Jones sued his own company, Free Speech Systems, to be held harmless in any award, meaning that the company and not Jones would be liable for any damages.

An initial response filed by attorneys for the families, called the attempt a “fiction” in which “found facts and sworn testimony mean nothing at all.”

One day later, Free Speech Systems filed

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August 10, 2022 by ATTORNEY

Sandy Hook Lawyers Rip Bankruptcy Bid By ‘Coward’ Alex Jones To Dodge Damages

Lawyers for Sandy Hook parents who successfully sued Donald Trump ally Alex Jones for his relentless lies about the mass killing are blasting him for now trying to use bankruptcy protection laws to dodge paying defamation damages.

“Just two days before jury selection is due to begin in Connecticut, Mr. Jones has once again fled like a coward to bankruptcy court in a transparent attempt to delay facing the families that he has spent years hurting,” Chris Matei, a lawyer for the families, said in a statement.

The extremist right-wing podcaster was found liable for defamation last year for repeatedly insisting that the 20 first-grade children (and six adults) killed in a mass shooting at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 — and their devastated parents — were acting as part of a fake anti-gun stunt staged by the U.S. government.

On top of the excruciating tragedy, families were then forced to deal with harassment and death threats from Jones’ unleashed fans.

A trial to determine damages began last week in a defamation case in Texas, where Infowars is located, and another begins this week in Connecticut. Last Friday, Jones suddenly declared bankruptcy for Infowars’ parent company. He

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August 8, 2022 by ATTORNEY

Nursing chain’s tangled structure, bankruptcy threats stymied suits

After a hospital stay in 2016 for a brain tumor, Regina Romero was transferred to a nursing home in New Mexico. Her “medications were withheld” and she was neglected and “subjected to an assault,” her family alleges in a wrongful death lawsuit filed in 2017 against the facility, Paloma Blanca Health and Rehabilitation.

Romero died less than four months after arriving at the home; she was only 59 years old, states the complaint, which doesn’t detail the allegations.

In March 2021, the case was nearing a settlement when negotiations suddenly halted.

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That month, a unit of Consulate Health Care — which owned 140 nursing homes, including Paloma Blanca — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protections. Romero’s stepdaughter said Consulate attorneys leveraged the pending bankruptcy as a bludgeon: either accept a significantly reduced settlement, or risk getting little or nothing from a bankrupt entity. The family begrudgingly took the much smaller offer, an amount that cannot be disclosed under the settlement terms.

“It’s horrible because I think they got away with what they did,” said the stepdaughter, Lisa Robichaud, who had moved near Romero when she entered Paloma Blanca. The two women had bonded over cooking together and grown

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August 7, 2022 by ATTORNEY

16 Top Bankruptcy Lawyers Poised to Earn Millions As the Economy Turns

  • Corporate bankruptcies have hit rock bottom, with just 143 filings this year as of May.
  • But inflation, rising rates, and the “crypto winter” are creating a financial strain.
  • Here are 16 lawyers who may benefit as more companies negotiate with lenders and restructure their debt.

Lawyers who specialize in bankruptcies and debt restructurings have not seen many new cases in court for more than a year — but some are betting that’ll soon change.

Bankruptcy filings, which have been on a downward spiral since last year, continue to slump.  As of May, there were just 143 corporate bankruptcy filings, putting bankruptcies on pace for a record low. In 2021, there were just 410 filings, down from 640 in 2020, according to an S&P Global Market Intelligence report in June.

But there are pockets of activity, and more than a dozen top restructuring practitioners told Insider they expected more out-of-court workouts and new Chapter 11-protection filings over the next year. Conference-room negotiations between companies and their lenders, which tend to precede filings, are picking up speed, the lawyers said. 

Supply-chain problems, the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation, and a decline in consumer confidence are likely to

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August 6, 2022 by ATTORNEY

Flood insurance hikes will drive 1 million people from market, FEMA report says | Business News

ST. LOUIS — When questioned by members of Congress, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said its new update to the nation’s flood insurance program will prompt more people to sign up for coverage, even though many will pay more for it.

But in a FEMA report obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act, the agency estimates 1 million fewer Americans will buy flood insurance by the end of the decade — a sizable number of people at risk of catastrophic financial loss.

As climate change drives increased flood risk in many parts of the country, FEMA has updated its flood insurance program to more accurately reflect risk, but also make the program more solvent. It’s a response in part to criticism that taxpayers were funding big payouts when coastal mansions in risky locations flooded.

But nine senators from both parties expressed “serious concerns” about the new pricing system in a letter last September, after hearing that the agency’s internal numbers predicted policies would drop off by 20%. The next month FEMA told the AP those figures were “misleading” and “taken out of context” and that on the subject of how many people will be insured “there

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August 3, 2022 by INSURANCE
August 2022
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