Law Firm News

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Law Firm News

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Stinson, Morrison & Hecker, L.L.P.

Bob O’Connor Selected as Chairman of WIBA
Stinson Morrison Hecker LLP attorney Robert J. O’Connor has been named as the 2007 Chairman of the Wichita Independent Business Association. O’Connor has been a member of WIBA for the past 15 years.

WIBA is an association of privately owned businesses pooling together for benefits that enhance their business operations. Those include counseling, research, education, group insurance programs, networking, discounted services and a voice in the political process.

O’Connor, a litigation partner in the Wichita office, has more than 40 years of experience in trial, appellate and administrative agency work. His practice has covered a broad spectrum of litigation, including death cases, personal injury, commercial torts, securities, antitrust, products liability, and oil and gas.

01-12-2007

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Norris, Mclaughlin & Marcus, P.A.

M. Karen Thompson to Participate In 2007 Corporate Counsel Institute
M. Karen Thompson, a member of the law firm Norris McLaughlin & Marcus, P.A., will speak on identity theft and employer privacy issues at the 2007 Corporate Counsel Institute sponsored by the New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education in association with the New Jersey State Bar Association. The full-day conference, to be held at the New Jersey Law Center in New Brunswick on January 24, 2007, will address current issues facing corporate counsel today, such as the duties and responsibilities of in-house counsel, executive compensation issues, D&O insurance issues, privacy issues, ADR, and the Sarbanes Oxley Act, among others.

For more information or to register, please visit the ICLE web site at www.icle.org.

Thompson, a resident of Warren, is a New Jersey Supreme Court Certified Civil Trial Attorney. Her practice currently is divided between products liability defense and employment litigation. She was recently named one of the Outstanding Women in Somerset County by the Commission on the Status of Women for her leadership role in a variety of legal and political organizations. She has authored numerous publications on a variety of subjects including products liability, directors’ and officers’ liability, and debtor-creditor issues.

Thompson received her J.D. from Rutgers University in 1978, and her B.A., magna cum laude, from Monmouth University in 1974. She is admitted to the New Jersey and New York Bars, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey and the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. She is a member of the New Jersey State (Products Liability and Employment Law Sections) and Somerset County (Past President 1992-1993) Bar Associations, as well as the New Jersey Defense Association and the Defense Research Institute.

01-12-2007

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Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP

Milbank Closes $2.1 Billion Recapitalization of Boston Generating LLC
Leveraging its expertise in the merchant power and energy sector, the international law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP has successfully closed the $2.1 billion recapitalization of Boston Generating LLC. Milbank, led by partner Eric Silverman, represented Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs as lead arrangers in negotiating and structuring the transaction.

Milbank’s Silverman commented, “As hedge funds and private equity investors have moved into the merchant energy sector, we have successfully worked to mobilize capital to facilitate recapitalizations and improve the financial profile of merchant generators. The $2.1 billion recapitalization of Boston Generating was made possible by favorable power and energy market conditions in New England and abundant liquidity in the Term B debt markets. Having worked with Credit Suisse and the other parties involved in a prior Boston Generating recapitalization which closed in October 2005, we were able to document and close the transaction in just three weeks.”

In addition to Mr. Silverman, the Milbank team included partners William Bice, Mark Regante and associates Brandon Dalling, Juan Carlos Espinoza, Ricardo Exantus, Heather Viets and Regulatory Advisor James Liles.

About the Recapitalization:
Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs launched the $2.1 billion refinancing of Boston Generating on December 4, 2006. The debt financing package consists of $1.4 billion in first lien debt, and a $400 million second lien term loan. The first lien credit facility consists of a $1.08 billion term loan, a $250 million synthetic letter of credit and a $70 million revolving credit facility.

Together with an additional $300 million of unsecured debt issued by holding company Exelon Boston Generating (EBG), the funds will be used to refinance $796 million of existing Boston Generating debt, provide working capital, fund a $285 million reserve account, provide a $70 million revolver and pay for $1.025 billion of EBG units.

Boston Generating LLC is a portfolio of Massachusetts-based oil and gas-fired merchant assets totaling 3,405 GW in capacity, comprised of the Mystic 7 (560 MW) and Fore River (832 MW) gas and oil projects and the Mystic 8 and 9 gas-fired projects (both 832 MW.) Developed as merchant plants by Sithe Boston, the projects ran into problems during the construction phase and were handed back to the lenders, who were subsequently taken out in a $1.3 billion recapitalization led by a consortium of hedge funds led by EBG Holdings, LLC and K Road Power Inc. in October 2005.

The $1.3 billion recapitalization allowed the owners to establish reliability must run contracts with the New England Independent System Operator, forward capacity revenues, and payments under hedging arrangements, which in turn have enabled the assets to support greater levels of debt, resulting in the successful $2.1 billion refinancing.

Milbank, a longstanding leader in the energy and power sectors, was recently awarded the Chambers and Partners 2006 “Global Energy & Project Law Firm of the Year” Award based on their involvement with a range of global power, oil & gas, renewables, infrastructure, natural resources and technology related deals and financings during the year.

01-12-2007

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Von Briesen & Roper, S.C.

NINE VON BRIESEN & ROPER, S.C. ATTORNEYS NAMED IN THE BEST LAWYERS IN AMERICA 2007
von Briesen & Roper, s.c., announced that nine of its attorneys are named in the 2007
edition of the Best Lawyers in America, as follows:

Michael P. Carlton for Environmental Law
David I. Cisar for Banking Law
Randall D. Crocker for Bankruptcy and Creditor-Debtor Rights Law
George A. Evans, Jr. for Trusts and Estates
Beth J. Kushner for Commercial Litigation
Robert J. Loots for Trusts and Estates
Timothy C. McDonald for Employee Benefits Law
Mark A. Shiller for Trusts and Estates
Frank L. Steeves for Commercial Litigation

The Best Lawyers in America is widely regarded as the preeminent referral guide to the legal profession in the United States. The Best Lawyers lists, representing 80 specialties in all 50 states and Washington, DC, are compiled through an exhaustive peer-review survey in which thousands of the top lawyers in the U.S. confidentially evaluate their professional peers. The current, 13th edition of Best Lawyers (2007), is based on more than 1.8 million detailed evaluations of lawyers by other lawyers.

01-12-2007

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Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP

Rollovers to IRAs now possible for plan beneficiaries
The government agencies are continuing to issue guidance with respect to provisions of the Pension Protection Act enacted this past summer. IRS Notice 2007-7 includes guidance on the new rules allowing beneficiaries, other than surviving spouses, to make rollovers of plan distributions from qualified plans to IRAs. These rules became effective January 1, 2007.

Background

Under prior law, if a participant died with a significant account balance in a qualified retirement plan and the participant's beneficiary was someone other than a surviving spouse, the beneficiary frequently could not take advantage of the minimum distribution rules that in many cases can allow the stretch-out of plan distributions over a long period of time. For example, if a participant died with a large balance in a 401(k) plan under which the only form of distribution was a lump sum and the participant designated a beneficiary other than a spouse, the beneficiary would be required to receive the distribution all at once, could not make a rollover, and would be taxable on the entire distribution at the time of receipt. By contrast, a surviving spouse can rollover the account balance to an IRA in the surviving spouse's name and then take minimum distributions over the spouse's life expectancy starting when the surviving spouse attains age 70-1/2.

The New Law

The Pension Protection Act changed this situation by allowing non-spouse beneficiaries to make rollovers to Individual Retirement Accounts provided the transfer of funds was made by direct trustee-to-trustee action. Therefore, if the distribution is paid to the beneficiary (rather than directly transferred to the IRA trustee), the beneficiary loses the right to make the rollover once he receives the funds.

The rollover rules for non-spouse beneficiaries are not as favorable, however, as the rules applicable to surviving spouses. The rollover by the non-spouse beneficiary does not extend the period for minimum distributions beyond the period already available to a beneficiary under the terms of existing law. Unlike a surviving spouse, the non-spouse beneficiary cannot wait until he or she attains age 70-1/2 to start taking minimum distributions. The IRA receiving the rollover from the non-spouse beneficiary must be established for the exclusive purpose of accepting the rollover. Therefore, the beneficiary cannot use a pre-existing IRA, for example, from the beneficiary's own deductible or rollover contributions, as could a surviving spouse. The resulting IRA is then treated as an inherited IRA so that the effect is the same as if the participant had made the rollover to an IRA prior to death and designated the beneficiary as beneficiary of that IRA.


The IRS has just issued Notice 2007-7 which clarifies a number of issues with respect to these new rollover rules:

# The IRA must be established in a manner so that the IRA is identified with respect to both the decedent and the beneficiary, for example: "Tom Smith as beneficiary of John Smith."


# A qualified plan is not required to offer this distribution option. This suggests that plans will have to be amended to provide this option, although the amendment can be retroactive. Under the general rules in the Pension Protection Act for plan amendments, amendments required by the Act can be made as late as 2009 retroactive to the applicable effective date. In the case of a terminated defined contribution plan, the plan will be deemed to offer this option even without amendment.


# If the beneficiary does not elect a rollover, the beneficiary is not subject to the mandatory 20 percent withholding rules applicable to other eligible rollover distributions.


# Minimum distributions may be taken based on the beneficiary's life expectancy starting in the year following the death of the decedent. Although, distributions may also be taken by the end of the fifth year following the death of the decedent if the decedent dies before his required beginning date (April 1 of the year following attainment of age 70-1/2), in most cases the greater tax savings can be obtained by making payments over the life expectancy of the beneficiary. The IRA documents should be reviewed carefully to make sure this option will be available.


# If the decedent dies after his required beginning date, but has not taken the minimum distribution due for the year of death, this amount is not eligible for rollover and must be distributed to the beneficiary prior to the end of the year in which the death occurs. For this reason, it is usually recommended to take the minimum distribution first and then make the rollover. Also, if there are minimum distributions that were not made for prior years, these amounts are not eligible for rollover.


# If a trust is named as beneficiary and the trust satisfies the requirements under the minimum distribution rules so that the trust beneficiaries are treated as the plan beneficiaries for minimum distribution purposes, then the IRA can be opened in the name of the trust as beneficiary of the decedent. Under these circumstances, the IRA documents should be reviewed to assure that only the trustee of the trust has the right to withdraw funds from the IRA.



Although these new rules will apply only in a limited number of cases, they provide an excellent planning opportunity when a decedent dies with significant assets in a qualified retirement plan.

01-12-2007

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Jennings Haug & Cunningham,L.L.P.

Resolving Problems and Disputes on Construction Projects -
Jim Csontos, a partner with the Firm, will be one of the speakers at National Business Institute's "Resolving Problems and Disputes on Construction Projects" seminar to be held on January 12, 2007 at the Wells Fargo Conference Center, 100 W. Washington, Phoenix, Arizona. The topics covered at this seminar include Handling Threats of Contract Termination, Effectively Resolving Disputes and many more construction related topics.

01-12-2007

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Hill Wallack LLP

Hill Wallack LLP Partner Featured Speaker as Seminar Panelist
Nielsen V. Lewis, a partner at the Princeton law firm of Hill Wallack LLP, was a featured panelist at the recent New Jersey Institute of Continuing Legal Education Seminar, “Environmental Risks and Business Solutions,” at the New Jersey Law Center. He gave a presentation on the acquisition of properties with pre-existing contamination and the availability of cleanup liability defenses and shelters for qualified land owners, purchasers and developers under New Jersey’s Spill Act and Industrial Site Recovery Act.

Partner-in-charge of Hill Wallack LLP’s Environmental Law Practice Group, Mr. Lewis counsels and represents corporations, public entities and individuals on a wide range of environmental and land use matters, including local development applications; environmental permitting; regulatory compliance; and environmental litigation, including complex CERCLA (Superfund), RCRA and New Jersey Spill Act disputes. A frequent lecturer and writer on environmental and insurance topics, he is a past Chair of the NJSBA’s Insurance Law Section, a member of its Environmental Law and Dispute Resolution Sections, and a Master of the Justice Stewart G. Pollock Environmental American Inn of Court. Mr. Lewis is admitted to the Superior Court Roster of Court-Approved Mediators.

Mr. Lewis received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University and his law degree from the University of Michigan Law School. He is admitted to practice in New Jersey, the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey and the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

01-12-2007

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