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The Attorney General’s Office is asking a federal judge to overturn a bankruptcy court ruling that some legal experts say could harm New Hampshire homeowners who fall into debt, the New Hampshire Union Leader reported. New Hampshire state law establishes a “homestead right,” stating: “Every person is entitled to $120,000 worth of his or her homestead, or of his or her interest therein, as a homestead.” Bankruptcy attorneys say that protection typically has been doubled for married couples, to $240,000. However, in June, the chief judge in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Bruce Harwood, ruled that the husband of a Merrimack woman seeking bankruptcy protection was not entitled to a homestead exemption because he is not on the deed to the family’s home. The bankruptcy trustee had objected to the homeowner’s claim of a second homestead exemption for her husband, and Harwood agreed. “Because the Debtor’s spouse is not an owner of the property, he is not entitled to claim an exemption,” he wrote in his opinion. “The couple is not allowed to ‘double-dip’ and claim $240,000 as exempt,” he wrote. Nashua attorney Leonard Deming, who represents the homeowner, has appealed that decision to the U.S. District Court in Concord.

The examiner in the Celsius bankruptcy has filed a preliminary plan that estimates the total cost of her investigation could be as high as $5 million, and at the same time asked Celsius to pick up the pace of its disclosures, The Block reported. Shoba Pillay said that the first priority of her investigation is to get a firmer grasp on the volume and extent of documents and data that her team will need to review and analyze. While the Jenner & Block lawyer recognized that Celsius is fielding multiple demands for information, she noted her requests must be prioritized to meet court deadlines. "If the Examiner is going to meet the Court’s deadlines, the pace of access to documents will need to be accelerated," she said in the plan filed on Tuesday. Her team has shared these concerns with Celsius and "is optimistic" that the bankrupt lender will respond promptly to her requests in the future. While Pillay said "any attempt to budget at this time is at best an educated guess," since she hasn't received the necessary documents to assess the work ahead, she can roughly estimate that the fees for her and her team will be between $3 to $5 million.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear McKinsey & Co.'s bid to escape a lawsuit by retired turnaround specialist Jay Alix, who accused the management consulting firm of concealing potential conflicts when seeking permission from bankruptcy courts to perform lucrative work on corporate restructurings, Reuters reported. The justices turned away McKinsey's request that they overturn a lower court's decision that the lawsuit by Alix, who says the firm ran a "criminal enterprise" by hiding its ties to lenders and its clients' competitors. Alix's lawsuit accused McKinsey and several current or former employees of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), a U.S. law used to target illegal conspiracies that originally was designed to target organized crime. Alix, who has battled McKinsey in multiple courtrooms since 2016, sought triple damages under RICO, which lets people sue if they believe criminal enterprises caused them harm. U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan in 2019 dismissed the lawsuit, saying that Alix did not assert a "proximate" link between McKinsey's alleged wrongdoing and harm to AlixPartners. Alix reported owning a 35% equity stake in AlixPartners. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in January revived the case, saying that Judge Furman gave "insufficient consideration" to whether McKinsey undermined the integrity of federal judicial proceedings. "If McKinsey's conduct has corrupted the process of engaging bankruptcy advisors, as Alix plausibly alleges, then the unsuccessful participants in that process are directly harmed," Second Circuit Judge Barrington Parker wrote. McKinsey in its petition to the Supreme Court argued that the Second Circuit's decision ran contrary to past rulings by the high court holding that RICO lawsuits may be brought only by plaintiffs injured "directly" by wrongdoing.