L'economista ($)mascherato: 12/01/09

martedì 1 dicembre 2009

Grecia sull'orlo della bancarotta

di Vittorio Da Rold - 30/11/2009

Fonte: Il Sole 24 ORE [scheda fonte]



I titoli di stato greci stanno perdendo terreno da una settimana portando il differenziale con i bund tedeschi ai massimi da luglio e facendo salire il timore che gli investitori stranieri possano decidere di portare i loro soldi in luoghi più sicuri. Il termometro della febbre di Atene, l'anello debole di Eurolandia, è uno spread arrivato a ben 170 punti base, il punto più elevato dallo scorso 14 luglio: ieri il differenziale è salito di altri 13 punti raggiungendo il tasso del 4,98%, rispetto al 3,27 dei bund tedeschi, una nuova voragine per il Tesoro greco costretto così a pagare un sovrapprezzo per non rischiare di avere le aste deserte. Il problema è che il deficit per il 2009 è salito al 12,7%, il più elevato dell'Unione europea dopo quello irlandese, mentre il governo del socialista George Papandreou, appena nominato, ha annunciato di volerlo ridurre al 9,8% l'anno prossimo. L'Ocse però avverte che nel 2011 il disavanzo tornerà al 10% perché le misure annunciate dall'esecutivo sono una tantum. «Inutile negare che i nodi stanno venendo al pettine», ammette un analista locale. Le previsioni di deficit del budget iniziali erano al 3,7% e in pochi mesi sono schizzate oltre il 12,7 per cento. La Commissione europea, sempre più impaziente, la settimana scorsa ha aperto una procedura di deficit eccessivo e ha chiesto al Consiglio di mandare un monito ad Atene usando l'articolo 104.8 del Trattato di Maastricht (che prevede di rendere pubbliche le raccomandazioni della Commissione come forma di pressione), una procedura usata solo due volte in passato: nel 2006 per la Germania e nel 2004 per la stessa Grecia. Il Consiglio vuole evitare di applicare sanzioni ma è molto preoccupato. Senza contare che l'esposizione delle banche di Francia, Germania e Italia nei confronti della Grecia ammontava a giugno, secondo dati della Bri, a 122 miliardi di dollari. Anche l'Ocse ha lanciato l'allarme sulla tenuta dei conti pubblici mentre l'ufficio statistico greco ha annunciato il calo del Pil dello 0,3% nel terzo trimestre, un segnale in controtendenza rispetto a quasi tutti gli altri paesi che cautamente stanno risalendo la china. In un contesto di politica monetaria dove la Bce è intenzionata a ridurre la liquidità in circolazione la situazione greca pesa anche sulle banche locali, che hanno perso terreno in borsa sull'onda di indiscrezioni secondo le quali sarebbero state invitate a ridurre la loro esposione in bond per favorire i prestiti alle imprese. Ora il nuovo Governo si trova a un bivio: da un lato deve, come promesso in campagna elettorale, rilanciare l'economia aumentando la spesa pubblica mentre dall'altro deve ridurre il deficit di bilancio per ridare fiducia agli investitori. Così il governo socialista greco, alle prese con la Finanziaria che verrà discussa a giorni in parlamento, si appresta a congelare salari, pensioni e assunzioni per far fronte all'emergenza economica. Con la nuova legge di bilancio saranno bloccati salari e pensioni al di sopra di duemila euro lordi mensili: un provvedimento che riguarderebbe 500mila impiegati e 400mila pensionati su una popolazione di 11 milioni di persone. Gli altri avranno aumenti appena sopra il tasso di inflazione. Inoltre saranno bloccate per il 2010 tutte le assunzioni pubbliche, salvo i settori chiave di sanità, scuola e sicurezza. Naturalmente questi annunci hanno fatto salire la tensione sociale già elevata. L'organo del partito comunista, Rizospastis, denuncia «un attacco frontale» contro i lavoratori e ha convocato una mobilitazione di piazza per il 24 novembre. Secondo il quotidiano di destra Adesmeftos Typos «Papandreou si è rimangiato le promesse elettorali» di continuare ad aumentare salari e pensioni al di sopra dell'inflazione. La stampa socialista ha annunciato le misure parlando di un «piano di austerità» ma anche di «un'iniezione di liquidità» e investimenti nell'economia per 10 miliardi di euro grazie e fondi nazionali ed europei, senza però chiarire da dove arrivino le risorse. Per il conservatore Kathimerini si tratta però di «timide misure» senza riforme strutturali. Papandreou ha avvertito che il Paese rischia la bancarotta, lamentando di essersi trovato una situazione finanziaria molto peggiore di quella che era stata annunciata dal precedente esecutivo.

Bank Ordered to Pay $6 Million in Damages

Bank Ordered to Pay $6 Million in Damages -- and $10 Million in Attorney Fees

Judge notes other side's failure to provide its own legal bills for comparison, calling defendant's 'silence on this issue ... more than deafening'

Andrew Longstreth

The American Lawyer

December 01, 2009

The folks over at Emigrant Savings Bank won't easily forget Kirkland & Ellis. On behalf of Metavante Corp., the firm won $6 million in damages against the bank last May, after a breach of contract bench trial before Milwaukee federal district court Judge J.P. Stadtmueller. That was bad, but here's a big, fat insult to add to that injury: Last Friday the judge ordered Emigrant to pay nearly $10 million in attorney fees and costs to Kirkland and a Wisconsin firm.

The underlying case involves a technology outsourcing agreement Emigrant signed with Metavante in 2004. Metavante, represented by the Milwaukee firm Kravit Hovel & Krawczyk, claimed in a Wisconsin state court suit that Emigrant broke the terms of the agreement. Emigrant's lawyers at Constantine Cannon filed counterclaims and had the case removed to federal court. As the May 2009 trial date approached, Metavante brought in Kirkland.

Following a two-week trial, Stadtmueller ruled in favor of Metavante on all of its claims and rejected all of Emigrant's. He also ordered Emigrant to pay Metavante's legal bills, which he said was required under the outsourcing agreement. Emigrant objected to the bills submitted by Kirkland and Kravit Hovel, arguing that it shouldn't have to pay the full amount since the judge did not award Metavante the entire termination fee it sought. Emigrant also questioned the reasonableness of the fees.

But in Friday's decision, Stadtmueller rejected both of Emigrant's arguments. He found that under the agreement between Emigrant and Metavante, the legal costs of the "prevailing party" in a dispute would be paid by the other side and that Metavante was the prevailing party. And in dismissing Emigrant's objections to the reasonableness of Metavante's legal bills, he noted the seriousness of Emigrant's counterclaims, which "made the the stakes of the litigation immense, as Metavante would have been forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages as a result of an adverse judgment."

The judge also noted Emigrant's unwillingness to disclose its own legal bills for the sake of comparison. "Perhaps most damaging for Emigrant is their failure to disclose any of the costs and attorneys' fees incurred by themselves in this litigation, which would provide a strong basis to gauge the reasonableness of Metavante's fee petition," he wrote. "While Emigrant is not required to disclose [its] own costs to demonstrate the unreasonableness of Metavante's costs, the defendant's silence on this issue is more than deafening."

Emigrant's legal bills -- whatever they are -- are only going to get bigger. The bank has appealed Judge Stadtmueller's $6 million damage award to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (pdf) and has brought on none other than David Boies of Boies, Schiller & Flexner to help out on the appeal. Metavante, which is sticking with Kirkland at the 7th Circuit, filed its response brief (pdf) last week.

We left a message with Robert Begleiter of Constantine, who represented Emigrant at trial, but didn't hear back. (Fun fact: Emigrant CEO Howard Milstein's wife, Abby Milstein, is a partner at Constantine.)

Paul Garcia and Andrew Bloomer of Kirkland & Ellis represented Metavante at trial. Not surprisingly, Garcia told us Judge Stadtmueller got the fees opinion "exactly right," but said he expects Emigrant to appeal this ruling as well. "It's not over," he said.

This article first appeared on The Am Law Litigation Daily blog on AmericanLawyer.com.

Real Estate Lawyer's Suicide a Sign of Desperate Times

Real Estate Lawyer's Suicide a Sign of Desperate Times for Some

Douglas S. Malan

The Connecticut Law Tribune

December 01, 2009

Attorney James F. Ripper had a professional career that a lot of lawyers would have been proud of.

He had practiced for 37 years and his disciplinary record was clean. He was operating a small Rocky Hill, Conn., firm called Real Estate Resources LLC, which focused on commercial and residential transactions, environmental issues and zoning and land use matters.

Then the real estate market took a nosedive, and his practice followed. He started falling behind on rent for his office suite in a building on Silas Deane Highway. At some point, he got desperate for money, and state grievance officials think Ripper dipped into his clients' accounts and took about $125,000.

His situation became untenable. On Nov. 13, Ripper, 64, hanged himself in his Wethersfield, Conn., home. "It appears he saw no way out," said Mark Dubois, the state's chief disciplinary counsel. "This hits close to home because it's such a small bar. He was well thought of by everyone."

Ripper left behind a wife and two adult children.

Ripper's office continues to be staffed by paralegals, none of whom wanted to comment for this story. An attorney was to be named trustee of his practice last week.

Real Estate Resources LLC is just down the street from Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers, a crisis intervention service for bar members. "Some lawyers I know knew him for a long time, and they said they had no clue" of Ripper's troubles, said Beth Griffin, the group's executive director. "You lose a lawyer, whatever the reason, and it's inevitably sad."

Attorney John F. Harvey Jr., of Barry, Harvey & Later in Wethersfield, was a law partner of Ripper's about 25 years ago before Ripper went solo. The two had not socialized since then, but they saw each other occasionally during real estate transactions.

Harvey was across the table from Ripper during a closing about a week before Ripper's death. "He just seemed like himself, just a cooperative, sweet person," Harvey said. His suicide "is an absolute shock and no one can believe it. It's just completely out of the blue."

Dubois said there are usually a couple of lawyer suicides each year in the state, and there could be more that he's not aware of because he doesn't receive official police reports.

"I thought we'd see more of this a year ago," when the economy got significantly worse, Dubois said, "but I wonder if people are now starting to be tapped out on their credit lines and home equity."

'ON HIGH ALERT'

Suicide among lawyers has long been documented to occur two to six times as often as in the general population, according to the American Bar Association. And recessionary times are not helping. Earlier this year, the ABA offered a free online program to members that focused on preventing suicides during a bad economy.

That program came on the heels of the high-profile suicide of Mark Levy, a Washington, D.C., appellate lawyer who regularly argued cases before the U.S. Supreme for the high-powered firm of Kilpatrick Stockton.

Levy shot himself in his office just a few days after learning that Kilpatrick Stockton was laying him off. "We're on high alert because of Mark Levy," said Griffin, of Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers.

Griffin has heard from several lawyers in similar life positions as Ripper and Levy -- men in their late 50s or early 60s who are facing layoffs, mandatory retirement in their firms, or are feeling their grasp on their practices slip away because the practice of law now requires technological savvy to stay profitable.

"It's hard for lawyers to adjust," Griffin said. "They'll ask me, 'What am I going to do now? All I've ever done is be a lawyer.'"

Just as troublesome are the lawyers who won't open up and talk to someone when they're feeling overwhelmed, Griffin said. "We're educated, as lawyers, to be helpers," she said, and lawyers aren't always comfortable asking for help.

It's not just older lawyers, Griffin said. She gets calls from law school students who read about thousands of young associates being laid off and wonder how they're going to make money in the profession.

Real estate, one of the traditional bread-and-butter practice areas for young lawyers, no longer is as profitable, Dubois said. Consolidations have wiped away local banks. More basic legal work, like real estate document preparation, is heading overseas to India where lawyers with 30 years' experience charge $10 an hour for their services.

"There are more people fighting over a smaller pot and they have to compete with price," Dubois said. "That makes it difficult to pay the rent."

Ripper's case "may be, sadly, the story of another lawyer who became irrelevant" due to rapid changes in the practice of law, Dubois said.

MANAGEMENT ASSISTANCE

When lawyers are solo practitioners or work in law firms with a handful of attorneys -- as the majority of the bar membership does -- it's easy for lawyers to feel lost and helpless, said Fairfield attorney Frederic Ury.

That opens the door for Connecticut to consider adopting a law office management assistance program, as several others states have done, Ury said. Those programs, much like Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers, are designed to be confidential, but they offer help in getting lawyers' practices back in order when they lose control of their finances or the workload overwhelms them.

"In those programs, people come in and help you not do something drastic," said Ury, who heads a state bar association task force on the future of the legal profession. "At a time like this, that would be something worthwhile to look at."

Ury said there's little time for socializing when lawyers are scrambling for business, and members of the bar don't interact with each other enough to know when a fellow bar member is in trouble.

Harvey, the Wethersfield attorney, said the topic of lawyers feeling like they're losing control never comes up in conversations until something tragic happens.

"I don't think lawyers talk about any of this until after the fact," he said. "People are just running around, trying to help their clients and get home by 6 o'clock."

The confidential hotline for Lawyers Concerned For Lawyers in Connecticut, a crisis intervention and support group, is 1-800-497-1422.