The Silver Legacy Resort Casino filed for bankruptcy on Thursday after it could not find money to repay nearly $143 million in loans that came due earlier this year, Dow Jones DBR Small Cap reported today. The 1,800-worker facility based in Reno, Nevada, plans to continue operating while company executives figure out how to replace that loan, which forms the bulk of its $174 million in debt.
Ailing law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP suffered a global round of defections as 25 partners and their teams jumped ship in cities ranging from Palo Alto, Calif., to Moscow, the Wall Street Journal reported today. One of Dewey's most-prized assets—the mergers-and-acquisitions group led by Silicon Valley attorneys Richard Climan and Keith Flaum—is heading to Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP. As the force behind several major West Coast assignments, including recent deals by the Los Angeles Dodgers, Dell Inc. and eBay Inc., the group was regarded by the legal industry as a gateway to one of the few regions where merger activity is showing significant signs of growth.
LightSquared Inc., the wireless-network company backed by billionaire Philip Falcone, received a second weeklong extension from creditors to delay a potential bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. The move gives LightSquared more time to negotiate before having to revisit a waiver that is keeping its debt from going into default. Before the original April 30 deadline, Falcone conditionally agreed to a request by creditors that he step down from the Reston, Va.-based company's board and executive committee.
A federal bankruptcy judge in Delaware has authorized the Tribune Co. to pay up to $45 million dollars in bonuses to managers this year, the Associated Press reported on Friday. Tribune says that the proposed bonuses are reasonable and appropriate and that there were no objections from creditors. The judge will hold a hearing in Wilmington, Del., next month to determine whether to approve Tribune's latest proposal to emerge from chapter 11.
The Federal Reserve's attempt to clarify the "Volcker rule" is only creating more confusion in the financial services industry and Congress, the Wall Street Journal reported today. At issue is whether the Fed is requiring banks to start scaling back on making bets with their own money almost immediately, or whether they can continue until the ban on such activities goes into effect in two years. Law firms, bankers, analysts and members of Congress are divided on what the Fed is advising. While Fed governor Daniel Tarullo said at a congressional hearing in March that regulators should keep trying to meet the July deadline, there is no firm date internally for when that final measure will be ready. The Fed largely calmed bankers' fears when it said in its guidance that it expects banks to "engage in good-faith planning efforts" to make sure they comply with proprietary-trading restrictions by July 21, 2014. That deadline follows a two-year "conformance" period after the rule's implementation.
The Singapore unit of MF Global Holdings Ltd., the bankrupt firm once run by Jon S. Corzine, was sued by seven former employees, including the head of sales for Asia, seeking information on the unit's financial status, Bloomberg News reported today. "The response from the provisional liquidators was very frustrating," Michael Joseph Drennan, former head of sales for Asia, said in his complaint filed with the Singapore High Court. The legal action by the seven former employees in Singapore, who claim in court papers they are owed at least S$3.5 million ($2.8 million) by MF Global Singapore, follows a suit in London. Employees of MF Global's U.K. unit are seeking 39 million pounds ($63 million) of unpaid bonuses, severance pay and pension contributions from its administrator KPMG LLP.