Law and legal issues

The Detroit City Council will meet in two special sessions over the next several days to vote on key measures needed to win release of state-controlled bond proceeds and revenue aid that the city needs to make it through both the calendar and fiscal years.

A federal appeals court Monday handed the three major rating agencies a victory by upholding a dismissal of a lawsuit brought by five Ohio pension funds that blamed the agencies for major investment losses.

After more than four years in the legal system, MBIA Insurance Corp.'s suit against Bank of America is to go to summary judgment hearing on December 12.

Voters in property-rich school districts are extremely reluctant to approve tax increases when half of the additional revenue will flow to poorer-districts, a pollster testified last week in a suit challenging the constitutionality of the current state funding system.

School districts that can generate property tax revenues above the state’s basic per-student stipend do not have to share the excess collections with poorer districts, the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled last week in a 4-3 decision.

San Bernardino filed documents Friday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Riverside, Calif. defending its eligibility to receive bankruptcy protection from creditors.

Alan Kennedy-Shaffer won his battle with Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration to continue leading community group Harrisburg Hope while working as a state attorney.

West Penn Allegheny Health System revealed that the Securities and Exchange Commission may sue it over accounting discrepancies.

The federal bankruptcy court in Chicago has signed off on a suburban Chicago retirement community's reorganization plan that relies on a $90 million bond issue to restructure its $116 million 2006 issue.

Moody's Investors Service for the third time this year downgraded Detroit Wednesday, warning that a razor-thin cash cushion, political instability, and the recent overturn of the state's emergency management are pushing the city closer to bankruptcy or default.

After nearly a decade of court battles brought by environmental advocates, the fate of Poseidon Resource's proposed Carlsbad, Calif. desalination plant will be decided Thursday when the San Diego County Water Authority board votes on a $3 billion water purchase agreement.

After cancelling a special session Monday, the Detroit City Council could meet as early as Tuesday to reconsider last week's 8-1 rejection of a contract that would make Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone PLC the city's special counsel.

A day after the Detroit City Council rejected a key condition of the state's release of $30 million of badly needed bond proceeds, the city's CFO said that unpaid furlough days and other cuts could offset the loss and that "bankruptcy is not an option."

DALLAS – A plan to issue $25 million of state lease revenue bonds to repair a Tulsa dam was unanimously rejected as unconstitutional Tuesday by the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

Judge dismisses bankruptcy case after Mammoth Lake, California reaches a settlement over $43 million owed to a developer, its largest creditor.

The Michigan Supreme Court may consider a lawsuit that seeks to remove the emergency manager of Detroit Public Schools after voters overturned the state’s emergency management law Nov. 6.

Assured Guaranty Corp. is asking an Iowa court to name a receiver to oversee the Xenia Rural Water District which has struggled to repay $81 million of outstanding revenue bonds insured by the company.

Standard & Poor's raised its rating on Central Falls, R.I.'s general obligation debt to BB from C. The outlook is stable.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing and the Michigan treasurer Thursday signed a new agreement outlining 10 key reforms the city must implement over the next several weeks to access dollars from a bond-funded escrow account controlled by the state.

Harrisburg's former receiver wants a special prosecutor to probe the incinerator bond deals that left Pennsylvania's capital more than $340 million in the hole.