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A lawyer for former Dewey & LeBoeuf executive director Stephen DiCarmine yesterday sought to inject doubt in the minds of jurors nearing a potential verdict in the long-running criminal case over the firm's demise, the <em>American Lawyer</em> reported. A day after defense lawyers for DiCarmine and former Dewey CFO Joel Sanders told Manhattan acting Supreme Court Justice Robert Stolz they would rest their case without calling witnesses, DiCarmine's lawyer, Rita Glavin of Seward & Kissel, began closing arguments in the three-month-old retrial. Prosecutors accuse DiCarmine and Sanders of misleading lenders and investors about the state of Dewey's financial health before its 2012 collapse.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced yesterday that it is ordering U.S. Bank National Association to pay a civil penalty of $15 million for what it calls “bankruptcy filing violations” that occurred between 2009 and 2014, HousingWire.com reported. According to the OCC, an investigation found that between 2009 and 2014, U.S. Bank “engaged in filing practices in bankruptcy courts with respect to proofs of claim, payment change notices, and post-petition fees among others that did not comply with bankruptcy rules and constituted unsafe or unsound banking practices.” According to the OCC, U.S. Bank committed the violations while it was under the terms of an April 2011 mortgage servicing-related consent order, which was subsequently terminated in February 2016. And because of those actions, which the bank neither admits nor denies, the OCC is fining U.S. Bank $15 million. According to the OCC, that money will be paid to the Department of the Treasury.

The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for General Motors Co. to potentially face billions of dollars in legal claims over a deadly ignition-switch defect, turning away the carmaker’s appeal in a clash connected to its 2009 bankruptcy sale, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The justices, without comment, left intact a federal appeals court ruling that said the bankruptcy accord didn’t block GM from lawsuits over accidents that happened before the sale or claims that the flaw caused vehicles to lose value. Plaintiffs’ lawyers have estimated that claims against the company may total as much as $10 billion. The Supreme Court’s action is a setback for GM Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra, whose first year in the job was consumed by the ignition flaw linked to at least 124 deaths and recalls of 2.59 million vehicles. The Supreme Court’s decision creates a small risk that GM will have to reach a legal settlement that could interfere with paying out its dividend or buying back stock, said David Whiston, a Morningstar Inc. analyst.

The Supreme Court today denied cert in General Motors LLC v. Elliott (Docket No. 16-764). General Motors had petitioned the Court to review the Second Circuit’s decision related to its potential liability arising from Old GM’s faulty ignition switches. The bankruptcy court had held that the ignition switch claimants could not pursue claims against General Motors as the good faith purchaser of old GM’s assets. As Bill Rochelle wrote in his analysis last year, the Second Circuit reversed that decision, thus exposing New GM to liabilities on account of Old GM’s conduct.

The Court relisted another much-watched case, Deutsche Bank v. McCormick, for the next conference. That case, as described in Bill Rochelle’s Daily Wire, arises from the Tribune bankruptcy and presents the question of the scope of the § 546(e) safe harbor in fraudulent transfer actions. Courts of Appeals in the Second, Third, Sixth and Eighth Circuits have held that a fraudulent transfer is exempt when a financial institution acts as a mere conduit for fraudulently transferred property. In contrast, the Seventh and Eleventh Circuits have held that such transfers are exempt from avoidance only when the financial institution has its own beneficial interest in the transferred property.