JOSEPH CIOFFI

Subprime Auto ABS Litigation Revs Up

Davis+Gilbert’s Subprime Auto Loan Risk Chronometer has not signaled significant market risk for some time, but new litigation has commenced that is of the type that had been anticipated and may be an indication of what is to come if the labor market deteriorates further and contributes to weaker performance. In litigation recently filed in federal court in California, a group of noteholders in a...

Read More

What’s Next for Cannabis After MasterCard’s Debit Card Ban?

Though cannabis’ status as a Schedule 1 controlled substance has hampered the industry’s ability to fully integrate into the digitally dominated payment world, with credit card issuers refusing to process cannabis transactions, cannabis businesses have historically been able to enjoy similar benefits of efficiency, convenience, and security with debit cards. However, MasterCard’s recent ban on...

Read More

Subprime Auto: Cracks in the Road Starting to Show

“The market is resilient” was the mantra throughout the pandemic. Now that the Federal Reserve is at an inflection point on interest rate hikes and the pause on student loan payments is set to end after three years of relief, “the market is vulnerable” may be a more appropriate refrain. In fact, the cracks have started to show, particularly in subprime auto ABS.

Read More

How Valuation and Materiality Become Catalysts for CRE Litigation

An inescapable result of high interest rates and post-pandemic trends is downward pressure on commercial real estate valuations, especially in the office sector. Given commercial mortgage-backed securities and other deal structures in which control of the loan rests with the lowest priority interest that is in the money, reduced valuations will likely become the flashpoint for CRE litigation.

Read More

The Wall of Maturities Looms in the Shadow of Bank Failures.  What’s Next for Commercial Real Estate?

Commercial real estate (CRE) sectors have not escaped the perma-crisis era in which we live, and the worst appears yet to come. First, hospitality and retail suffered setbacks with pandemic lockdowns. Then, the persistence of work-from-home and employee resistance to returning to the office drastically changed the flow of workers to the office and urban centers. Now, before those issues are...

Read More

Key Influences on the Cannabis Market in 2023

2023 may create the harshest conditions yet for the cannabis industry. The economy was already expected to be a challenge to profitability and now turmoil in the banking sector may further distract Congress from passing meaningful marijuana banking legislation, continuing to limit access to credit. Yet, as the market continues its inevitable march toward federal legalization, it is possible to...

Read More

Cannabis-adjacent Bankruptcy Eligibility Update: Significant New Decision

Around the time Reuters published our article regarding bankruptcy eligibility, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California (LA Division) issued a decision in In re The Hacienda Company, LLC, that thoughtfully articulates the balancing of governmental policies, bankruptcy purposes and creditors’ rights a bankruptcy court should engage in when dealing with cannabis and...

Read More