At the same time as banks are sacking employees in operating roles, they are adding swarms to cope with various requests from government agencies and other new filings, all to avoid violating rules that may never come into existence and temporary measures that may be rescinded.
And while the firms' lawyers acknowledge there are some embarrassing e-mails still under seal, they say their clients want to keep the court filings private mostly to avoid disclosing confidential competitive information.
The policy, being announced today, includes standards like clearly identifying the corporate ownership of patents, to avoid filings that cloak authorship under the name of an individual or dummy company.
According to Johnson Associates, top executives are expected to be hardest hit, partly because their payouts are disclosed in corporate filings and executives want to avoid a public outcry.
In 2009, about one and a half million filings are expected, although if Congress makes it easier for homeowners who file for bankruptcy to avoid foreclosure, that number could climb even higher.
Saying there is no other way for the companies to avoid bankruptcy filings, the buyout firm Forstmann Little has announced huge restructuring plans the last two weeks for both XO, a telephone and Internet company based in Mclean, Va., and McLeodUSA, a telephone company in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
The costs of distress are significant from a financial perspective; thus, corporations are motivated to avoid bankruptcy filings through private financial reorganization (Franks and Torous 1994).
US Fortune 500 companies have put billions toward compliance – and in some cases that has not been enough to avoid lawsuit filings – while some smaller firms have closed operations or shut down entirely until they better understand the implications of these new regulations.
This is important to avoid adding any metal filings that may have been generated from honing into your recipe.
