Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
This week, the law firm Holland & Knight and its partner Bill Banowsky asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur to dismiss a bankruptcy trustee’s fraud lawsuit against them for failure to state a claim. Holland & Knight and Banowsky argued the trustee had obscured “the facts upon which it must rely for wrongdoing against defendants in this case.”
Residential solar company Sunnova TEP Developer, a subsidiary of Houston-based Sunnova Energy International, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week in the Southern District of Texas.
Jackson Walker has agreed to attempt to mediate claims brought by federal officials that the Dallas-based law firm should be forced to return millions of dollars it was paid in legal fees from 33 bankruptcy cases in which Jackson Walker lawyers failed to disclose that one of its former partners had a romantic relationship with the Houston judge who was presiding over those cases. The U.S. Bankruptcy Trustee in the Southern District of Texas and lawyers for Jackson Walker filed a joint notice Friday stating that they “intend to participate in an in-person mediation” between June 16 and July 1. (2020 file photo of David Jones by Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle via Getty)
The U.S. Supreme Court granted an emergency stay to Highland Capital Management, halting a lower court decision that allowed former CEO James Dondero to sue parties involved in the firm’s bankruptcy. Justice Samuel Alito issued a one-page order that pauses a March ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which had permitted Dondero to pursue litigation against individuals previously deemed protected by a North Texas bankruptcy judge in relation to Highland Capital’s bankruptcy and restructuring.
Houston-based Ascend Performance Material and eight of its affiliated businesses filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday citing $1 billion to $10 billion in liabilities, according to its filing in the Southern District of Texas.
Less than 48 hours after lawyers representing some of the thousands of women claiming that Johnson & Johnson talc powder caused their ovarian cancer asked a Houston judge for “a do-over” and to reconsider his ruling dismissing their efforts to reach a settlement agreement through the bankruptcy court, the judge issued his answer Thursday: No can do.
Some plaintiffs’ lawyers representing tens of thousands of women claiming that Johnson & Johnson talc powder caused their ovarian cancer have asked a Houston judge to give them a second chance. Attorneys representing different groups of women asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez to reverse his March 31 decision to dismiss the Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition filed by Red River Talc, a subsidiary of J&J, but to allow the parties to either fix the flaws in the previous petition or to send the entire case to mediation. But an opposing group of lawyers who also represent more than 20,000 women, including 465 women in the Dallas area, told The Texas Lawbook Wednesday that this new effort to reopen the bankruptcy is just another attempt by J&J “to force unreasonably low settlements on women already suffering from life-threatening illness and financial hardship.”
California-based Global Clean Energy Holdings, a renewable fuels company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the Southern District of Texas early Wednesday. Citing between $1 billion and $10 billion in liabilities and assets in its original petition, Global Clean Energy and 15 of its affiliated companies hired Kirkland & Ellis as its lead legal advisor and Norton Rose Fulbright Houston partner Jason Boland as its local legal bankruptcy counsel.
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