Given the state of commercial real estate, the prospect for defaults by commercial borrowers has greatly increased. The last time there was a significant downturn in the commercial real estate sector in the early 1990s, owners of buildings and other real estate often turned to Chapter 11 bankruptcy as a method of buying time and, in some cases, lowering or at least restructuring the amount of secured debt against the real property through a plan of reorganization. This raises the question -- will the same story play out again in this downturn?

Last month, I reported on a decision from Delaware Bankruptcy Judge Mary Walrath in the In re Washington Mutual, Inc. case ("WaMu") holding that informal creditor groups must disclose details of their trades under Federal Rule

It's been a few years since decisions from the United States Bankruptcy Courts for the Southern District of New York, and later from the Southern District of Texas, examined whether hedge funds and other investors could be required to disclose the details of their trades when they form an ad hoc committee or group in a Chapter 11 case.  Last week, Judge Mary Walrath of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware issued a decision in the Washington Mutual, Inc.

Last week, Google launched a new feature on its Google Scholar specialized search engine that enables full-text searching of published federal and state court opinions, as well as articles in certain legal journals. Users can access the new features by selecting the "Legal opinions and journals" bullet on the Google Scholar main search page. The cases in the Google Scholar database generally include official reporter citation page numbers throughout the decision.