As announced in Louisiana Tax Commission Statewide Advisory 03-2021 on Hurricane Ida, pursuant to La. R.S. 47:1978.1, Louisiana Assessors in Parishes affected by Hurricane Ida have to reassess property for purposes of the upcoming annual property tax bills to take into account any reductions in fair market value to property as a result of hurricane
On April 5, 2021, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) released its advance notice of proposed rulemaking (“ANPRM”) to solicit public comments on questions pertinent to its implementation of the Corporate Transparency Act’s (“CTA”) beneficial owner reporting requirements. As discussed in a previous Energy Law Blog post, the CTA was adopted as part of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act and requires that certain business entities disclose to FinCEN the identities of their beneficial owners and applicants. The information will then be stored in a secure, private database that may be accessed by, among others, law enforcement agencies for crime prevention and certain financial institutions for customer due diligence purposes. FinCEN has until January 1, 2022, to implement the regulations regarding reporting requirements, although FinCEN is also using this ANPRM to solicit comments on the implementation of the related database maintenance use and disclosure provisions. Final rules on customer due diligence requirements for financial institutions will be the subject of separate rulemaking and comment periods.
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In Mary v. QEP Energy Company, the Western District of Louisiana rejected, for the second time in this case, Plaintiffs’ claims seeking a disgorgement of QEP’s profits. QEP was the lessee of a mineral lease covering Plaintiffs’ property, but because it wanted to transport off-site gas across their property, QEP also obtained a pipeline
The Corporate Transparency Act, adopted as part of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (the “Act”), will require certain business entities (defined as “reporting companies”) to disclose to the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) the identities of their beneficial owners and applicants. FinCEN will use these disclosures to create a
On January 25, 2021, the United States Supreme Court dismissed, as “improvidently granted,” a writ of certiorari it had previously granted on a petition asking it to consider “[w]hether a provision in an arbitration agreement that exempts certain claims from arbitration negates an otherwise clear and unmistakable delegation of questions of arbitrability to an arbitrator.”
This blog post is the first in a series of blog posts that will discuss some of the nuances of Louisiana property law relating to solar leasing. With solar companies entering the Louisiana market, many of which having no prior experience in Louisiana, it is important to identify and avoid some pitfalls that may not be immediately obvious to the common-law practitioner.Continue Reading Solar Leasing in Louisiana: Who to Lease?
Commercial Lease Considerations in the Wake of Hurricane Laura
Following disasters such as Hurricane Laura, business owners have a variety of concerns when beginning the recovery process. Chief among those concerns: what to do when your place of business has been damaged or destroyed? If you lease your place of business, or if you lease out land or buildings to other people for their businesses, this concern becomes especially important when you consider the different parties with a potential interest in the recovery—the lessor (landlord), the lessor’s insurer, the lessor’s lender, the lessee (tenant), the lessee’s insurer, and the lessee’s lender. Being familiar with your lease agreement is the key to understanding the extent of your rights and responsibilities, especially as they pertain to repair obligations, obligations regarding the payment or reimbursement of insurance deductibles, insurance recovery, and rights to termination and reduction (abatement) of rent. As an initial matter, the first question you should ask yourself is: What kind of lease agreement do I have?
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This article was updated on April 14, 2020.
Day-to-day life has been dramatically impacted by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and many courts in Louisiana and Texas have been forced to close or limit operations in conjunction with stay-at-home orders. A brief discussion of how COVID-19 has affected Louisiana and Texas courts is discussed here.Continue Reading Louisiana and Texas COVID-19 Stay-at-Home Orders and Effects on State Courts
Through the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (“TCJA”), in 2017 Congress enacted Code Sections 1400Z-1 and 1400Z-2 of the Internal Revenue Code (the “Code”). These Code Sections were designed to encourage investment and economic growth in certain-low income communities by creating a procedure for identifying Qualified Opportunity Zones (“QOZs”) and offering certain federal income tax incentives to taxpayers who invest in businesses located in them. Code Section 1400Z-1 provides the procedure for designating QOZs and Section 1400Z-2 outlines the tax benefits associated with investments into these zones.Continue Reading Opportunity Zones: Where Are We Now?
A Lender in a real estate financing transaction often requires borrower’s counsel to opine on certain aspects of the transaction as a condition to the closing. Often, the negotiations between borrower and lender counsel are as contentious and extended as are negotiations regarding the loan documents themselves. The respective attorney opinion committees of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers, the American College of Mortgage Attorneys, and the Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Section of the American Bar Association have worked for years to produce opinion reports that are fairly balanced between the needs of lenders and borrowers and that can reduce the negotiations over real estate finance opinions. The first opinion report specifically addressing financing opinions in real estate transactions was the Real Estate Opinion Letter Guidelines published in 38 Real Prop. Prob. & Tr. J. 241 (2003). The next report was the comprehensive The Real Estate Finance Opinion Report of 2012 published at 47 Real Prop. Tr. & Est. L. J. 213 (2012) and The ACREL Papers 121 (Spring 2013). The Local Counsel Opinion Letters – A Supplement to the Real Estate Finance Opinion Report of 2012, 51 Real Prop. Tr. & Est. L. J. 167 (2016) directly addresses the particular issues facing local counsel in real estate finance transactions. The latest report, just published at 53 Real Prop. Tr. & Est. L. J. 163 (Fall 2018/Winter 2019), is Uniform Commercial Code Opinions in Real Estate Finance Transactions (the “UCC Opinion Report”). In addition to accessing these reports in the Real Property Probate and Trust Journal, the Legal Opinion Resource Center of the ABA Business Law Section contains these and many other opinion reports and resources.