Law and legal issues

Detroit said it stands behind the proposed $815 million 'grand bargain" as the best solution to aid pensioners and protect the city art museum's collection, rejecting an offer from Art Capital Group for a $4 billion loan with the art collection serving as collateral.

Detroit’s $1.8 billion water and sewer revenue bond sale this week drew about $7.6 billion of orders, officials said, allowing the city to lower interest rates and carve out some additional savings.

Harrisburg, Pa., Mayor Eric Papenfuse said the scandal surrounding city Treasurer John Campbell's alleged theft from a nonprofit does not extend to city finances.

The judge in charge of mediation in the Detroit bankruptcy case ordered a new round of talks between the city and holders and insurers of $1.4 billion of pension certificates of participation.

Harrisburg, Pa., Treasurer John Campbell has been charged with theft from a nonprofit he used to run, said Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico.

Lawyers involved in a conduit bond financing for a charitable nonprofit organization should decide as soon as possible which of them is responsible for ensuring the tax-exempt status of the borrower, the National Association of Bond Lawyers concludes in a just-released paper.

The trustee on $20 million of unrated bonds issued for the bankrupt Leafs Hockey Club in suburban Chicago hopes to reach a debt restructuring deal with the club by early October but the two sides remain at loggerheads over the club's fiscal prospects.

Standard & Poor's raised Detroit's water and sewer revenue bonds three levels up from junk bond territory ahead of the city's $1.8 billion sale of mostly refunding bonds, offering a more positive assessment than Fitch Ratings or Moody's Investors Service.

Detroit plans to sell $1.8 billion of water and sewer bonds Tuesday through the Michigan Finance Authority in a transaction that allows it to finance the purchase of $1.5 billion of tendered bonds and further its efforts to exit bankruptcy.

Detroit's voluntary tender program of its water and sewer revenue bonds may have provide an "optimal solution" for the market but it still represents a default, Municipal Market Advisors said Monday.

Connecticut State Rep. Diana Urban wants to create a results-based accountability report card for nonprofits to prevent further Amistad-type fiascoes.

Detroit will refinance a chunk of its water and sewer debt as part of a tender offer settlement with bondholders.

A federal judge upheld a bankruptcy court judgment against Bruce Cole, former head of Mamtek US Inc., finding he fraudulently obtained bond funds to finance a sucralose production plant in Moberly, Missouri.

Fitch Ratings shifted its outlook on O'Hare International Airport to stable from negative citing steady air traffic trends and more certainty over American Airlines' future at the airport after the airline's exit from bankruptcy.

Attorneys for Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Thursday that an investigation of how his donors won contracts from a state cancer research fund did not motivate him to veto funding for the investigators.

A court-appointed receiver will oversee the operations of the troubled nonprofit that operates Connecticut's flagship replica slave vessel Amistad.

Fitch Ratings said Detroit's offer to holders of $5.2 billion of water and sewer bonds to tender their debt as part of a bankruptcy settlement does not constitute a distressed debt exchange, an analysis that could bode well for ratings the planned refinancing of the debt.

Detroit has asked the federal judge in charge of its Chapter 9 to consider forcing bond insurer Syncora Guarantee to issue an apology for suggesting that federal mediators have tainted the bankruptcy process.

Detroit Public Schools will move forward with a plan to issue $111 million of state aid notes as well as an updated deficit elimination plan that calls for 10% pay cuts and the closure of up to 24 schools.

A group of ratepayers from a Chicago suburb are suing five advisors and consultants, accusing them of misrepresenting the value of participation in the bond-financed Prairie State Energy Campus to the city of Batavia.