Justia Banking Opinion Summaries

Appellant, a former shareholder in Wachovia, sought to recover personally for the decline in value of his shares of Wachovia stock during the recent financial crisis. The district court dismissed the suit, concluding that appellant's complaint stated a claim derivative of injury to the corporation and that he was therefore barred from bringing a direct or individual cause of action against defendants. The court held that because appellant's varied attempts to recast his derivative claim as individual were unavailing, the judgment of the district court was affirmed.

The Wyoming Division of Banking performed a Wyoming Uniform Consumer Credit Code compliance examination of Onyx Acceptance Corporation and determined it was improperly charging its Wyoming customers fees for making payments by telephone or internet. The Division ordered Onyx to stop charging the fees and refund the fees collected. The Office of Administrative Hearings issued a recommended order granting summary judgment for the Division. Consistent with the recommended decision, the administrator of the Code issued an order finding that Onyx violated the Code when it charged the fees. The district court reversed, concluding that the fees were not covered by the Code and, therefore, Onyx did not violate the Code by charging them to customers who opted to pay by phone or internet. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that Onyx did not violate the Code and summary judgment in its favor was appropriate. Remanded.

Plaintiff partnership was formed for the purpose of facilitating the acquisition of a portfolio of Chinese nonperforming loans (NPLs). The IRS determined that plaintiff was a sham partnership that need not be respected for tax purposes and that plaintiff's allocation of the $200 million loss to the deducting partner should be disallowed. At issue on appeal are the income-tax consequences of three interrelated transactions entered into by plaintiff and its three members. The court held that the district court correctly held that, while the acquisition of an interest in a portfolio of Chinese NPLs had economic substance, the plaintiff partnership was a sham that must be disregarded for federal income-tax purposes. As a consequence, that acquisition must be recharacterized as a direct sale. The court also held that the district court was correct to disallow all accuracy-related penalties on the ground that plaintiff had reasonable cause for, and exhibited good faith in, reporting the positions it took on its 2002 partnership return. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Liberty commenced this action against the Trustee under the Indenture, seeking injunctive relief and a declaratory judgment that the proposed Capital Splitoff would not constitute a disposition of "substantially all" of Liberty's assets in violation of the Indenture. The Court of Chancery concluded, after a trial, that the four transactions at issue should not be aggregated, and entered judgment for Liberty. The Court of Chancery concluded that the proposed splitoff was not "sufficiently connected" to the prior transactions to warrant aggregation for purposes of the Successor Obligor Provision. The court agreed with the judgment of the Court of Chancery and affirmed.

This case involved a fallout of a $3.65 billion Ponzi scheme perpetrated by Minnesota businessman Thomas J. Petters. Appellants, investment funds (collectively, Ritchie), incurred substantial losses as a result of participating in Petters' investment scheme. Ritchie subsequently sued two officers of Petters' companies, alleging that they assisted Petters in getting Ritchie to loan over $100 million to Petters' company. Ritchie's five-count complaint alleged violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C. 1962(a), (c)-(d), common law fraud, and tortious inference with the contract. The court held that the district court erred in concluding that Ritchie's action was barred by a Receivership Order. The court also rejected arguments challenging the sufficiency of Ritchie's pleadings in the common law fraud count and did not to address other arguments related to abstention, lack of causation, and absolute privilege. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment of the district court and remanded for further proceedings.

Plaintiff alleged that defendant had a personal bank account at Fulton Financial Corporation (Fulton), of which his wife could be a joint holder. Plaintiff sought a temporary restraining order enjoining both defendant and his wife from using the funds or removing them from Fulton, pending a final disposition of its claim that the funds were wrongfully removed by defendant from plaintiff's account. The court held that while the complaint stated a colorable claim, the court was unpersuaded that irreparable harm would result absent the entry of a restraining order, ex parte. The court also held that where, as here, the plaintiff sought to freeze the funds of an account legally held, not only by the alleged wrongdoer but jointly by an innocent third party, a request for ex parte action raised concerns of due process. Therefore, since plaintiff failed to show that irreparable harm would occur absent entry of a temporary restraining order ex parte, the court deferred decision on the restraining order request pending service and an opportunity for defendant to be heard.

This case arose when plaintiff filed a putative class action complaint against defendant and others following the decline of defendant's stock price. At issue was whether certain statements concerning goodwill and loan loss reserves in a registration statement of defendant's gave rise to liability under sections 11 and 12 of the Securities Act of 1933, 15 U.S.C. 77a et seq. The court held that the statements in question were opinions, which were not alleged to have falsely represented the speakers' beliefs at the time they were made. Therefore, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

This case arose when Commerzbank agreed to acquire Dresdner Bank in September 2008. As part of the deal, Commerzbank also acquired Dresdner Bank's trust preferred structures, and holders of Dresdner's trust preferred securities received distributions in both 2009 and 2010. Plaintiff claimed that paying those distributions "pushed," or required Commerzbank to make distributions on, a class of its owned preferred securities in which plaintiff had an interest, and, by the complaint, plaintiff asked the court to enforce that alleged obligation. Plaintiff also sought specific performance of a support agreement that was argued to require the elevation of the liquidation preference of Commerzbank's trust preferred securities in response to a restructuring of one class of the Dresdner securities. The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. The court held, among other things, that because the DresCap Trust Certificates did not qualify as either Parity Securities, defendants were entitled to judgment in their favor as a matter of law regarding plaintiff's claim under the Pusher Provision. The court also held that because DresCap Trust Certificates did not qualify as either Parity Securities or Junior Securities, Section 6 of the Support Undertaking was not triggered by amendment of the DresCap Trust IV Certificates. Accordingly, defendants were entitled to judgment in their favor as a matter of law regarding plaintiff's claim that the amendment of the DresCap Trust IV Certificates required defendants to amend the Trusted Preferred Securities.

This case stemmed from credit agreements Lehman entities entered into with Palmdale Hills, LLC entities. Palmdale filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2008 and Lehman subsequently filed eight motions for relief from Palmdale's stay to foreclose on the collateral securing the loans that were in default. The court held that the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel (BAP) correctly held that Lehman had standing to appeal the bankruptcy court's finding that the automatic stay did not prevent equitably subordinating Lehman's claims. The court also held that the BAP correctly determined that the appeal was not moot. The court further held that the BAP correctly determined that Lehman's automatic stay prevented Lehman's claims from being subordinated. Accordingly the court affirmed the BAP's judgment.

Plaintiffs James Adams, Stanley Dye and Ed Holcombe were all shareholders in Altrust Financial Services, Inc. They sued Altrust, the Peoples Bank of Alabama (collectively, Altrust) and Dixon Hughes, LLC, Altrust's public-accounting firm, for violating the Alabama Securities Act. Altrust is a holding company that fully owns, controls and directs the operations of the Bank. Altrust and the Bank share common officers and directors and issue consolidated financial statements. Shareholders voted to reorganize the company in 2008 from a publicly held company to a privately held company. The move would have freed the company of certain reporting obligations imposed by the federal Securities Exchange Act and allowed the company to elect Subchapter S status for tax purposes. Relying on information in a proxy statement, Plaintiffs elected not to sell their shares of Altrust stock and instead voted for reorganization. Plaintiffs alleged that the proxy statement and financial reports contained material misrepresentations and omissions that induced them to ultimately sign shareholder agreements that made them shareholders in the newly reorganized Altrust. Plaintiffs contended that if (in their view) instances of mismanagement, self-dealing, interested-party transactions and "skewing" of company liabilities had been fully disclosed, they would have elected to sell their shares rather than remain as shareholders. Upon review, the Supreme Court found that Plaintiffs' allegations were not specific to them but to all shareholders, and as such, they did not have standing to assert a direct action against the company. Because Plaintiffs did not have standing to assert claims against Altrust, they also lacked standing to assert professional negligence claims against the accounting firm. The Court remanded the case for further proceedings.