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Ex-Billionaire Blixseth's Wife Ordered to Hand over $9 Million in Hidden Assets

Submitted by jhartgen@abi.org on

A federal jury in Seattle has ordered Jessica Blixseth, estranged wife of former billionaire Timothy Blixseth, to hand over more than $9 million in assets her husband transferred to her in an attempt to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in judgments against him stemming from the collapse of his Yellowstone Club real estate business, Forbes.com reported yesterday. The jury found Jessica Blixseth liable for accepting the transfer of private firms plus proceeds from the sale of Blixseth’s yachts, Piano Bar and Piano Bar Too, and a Citation jet into JTB LLC, a firm Jessica Blixseth controlled. Blixseth, who now goes by her maiden name Ferguson, was also found liable for transferring $600,000 to her mother, Cherrill B. Ferguson. Blixseth himself was hit with a $287 million final judgment by a Montana bankruptcy judge on Sept. 28. Read more

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Nortel Settles Fight to Divvy Up $7.3 Billion from Liquidation

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Former telecommunications equipment company Nortel Networks Ltd. reached an agreement with their various business units yesterday to divvy up the $7.3 billion raised from liquidating the failed company, paving the way for pensioners and creditors to get paid after a seven-year wait, Reuters reported. Ontario-based Nortel stumbled from ranking among the world's most valuable companies during the 1990s Internet bubble to bankruptcy in 2009 and liquidation. The cash at the center of the dispute was raised from the sale of Nortel's global businesses, including patents sold in 2011 for $4.5 billion to a group of technology firms led by Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Sony Corp.  Under the agreement, Nortel's former U.S. business unit would receive 24 percent or $1.8 billion of the cash, with Nortel estates in Canada and Europe receiving 57 percent and 18 percent respectively, the former company said in a court filing.

Trump's Casino Experience Demonstrates Job and Revenue Losses, According to Legal Scholar on Latest ABI Podcast

Submitted by jhartgen@abi.org on

ABI Executive Director Sam Gerdano talks with Prof. Jonathan C. Lipson of the James E. Beasley School of Law at Temple University about Lipson's paper, "Making America Worse: Jobs and Money at Trump Casinos, 1997-2010." Lipson discusses his findings, which revealed that Atlantic City casinos owned or controlled by Donald Trump between 1997-2010 (the Taj Mahal, Marina, and Plaza) lost far more jobs and revenue than other Atlantic City casinos. Click here to listen to the podcast.

Gawker Seeks Probe of Thiel’s Relationship with Hogan’s Lawyer

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Gawker Media LLC has asked the judge overseeing the company’s bankruptcy to authorize a probe into the relationship between billionaire Peter Thiel and the lawyer representing former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan as well as several of the media group’s other creditors, the Wall Street Journal reported today. In a filing yesterday in bankruptcy court in Manhattan, Gawker’s lawyers said that they believed that Thiel may have been involved in financing as many as eight separate lawsuits that the bankruptcy process is seeking to settle. Thiel, who was outed as gay in 2007 by a Gawker site, has acknowledged bankrolling a legal campaign against Gawker, including the invasion-of-privacy lawsuit brought by the former wrestler, whose real name is Terry Bollea. A Florida jury awarded Bollea damages of $140 million.

ITT Tech’s Bankruptcy Trustee Seeks to Fend Off SEC, CFPB

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The bankruptcy trustee sifting through the wreckage left when the ITT Technical Institute chain of schools collapsed says the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and other government agencies are getting in her way, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Deborah Caruso, the trustee, wants the CFPB sidelined by court order, along with the Securities and Exchange Commission and attorneys general for Massachusetts and New Mexico, as well as others that sued the troubled for-profit educational company before it filed for bankruptcy last month. On Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Indianapolis, Judge James Carr set the matter for a hearing Nov. 2. Caruso is asking for an injunction barring government agencies from continuing their legal march on ITT Tech. Additionally, she wants a halt to lawsuits aimed at the company’s former executives.

Facebook Founder Saverin Sued in Fight over Bankrupt Startup

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An investor in Jumio Inc. sued Facebook Inc. co-founder Eduardo Saverin and other directors of the mobile-payment company accusing them of mismanaging the startup and duping shareholders about its prospects, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Bad management drove the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company into bankruptcy after it was forced in 2015 to restate two years’ worth of earnings, shareholder Bloso Investments Ltd. said in the complaint filed in Delaware Chancery Court. Saverin, who became a billionaire through Facebook’s initial public offering, extolled Jumio in 2012 as growing faster in its infancy than the social-media network he helped create in 2004, and predicted the company would be highly profitable. Saverin’s statements and ones made by other directors misled Bloso officials about Jumio’s operations and duped them into investing $5 million in the company, according to the lawsuit filed Sept. 29.