I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
Fiat, the Italian automaker whose partnership with Chrysler is the key to the future emergence of the company as a profitable enterprise once again, has asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court not to allow a suit filed by the Indiana pension system to delay approval of the sale of Chrysler’s assets to a new Chrysler/Fiat partnership. Automotive News reports:
Fiat S.p.A. said in court papers on Friday that it is “already concerned” about the “deteriorating value” of the assets of alliance partner Chrysler LLC and that a U.S. district court should not obstruct its sale process.
Chrysler, its creditors’ committee, and Fiat filed a series of court documents on Friday, asking the U.S. District Court in Manhattan to reject a request by a group of Indiana state pension funds that the district court intervene in the bankruptcy case and postpone the sale of Chrysler’s assets.
“Any material delay in the implementation of the bidding and sales process that the Bankruptcy Court has carefully but expeditiously set in motion will destroy Chrysler, put hundreds of thousands of people out of work, and devastate communities in both the United States and Canada,” Chrysler said in court documents.
The Indiana state pension system has filed a separate suit in federal court objecting to the proposed bankruptcy settlement that would treat their secured debt as an inferior claim to unsecured debt held by the union. The Indiana pension fund holds $43 million in secured debt out of a total of more than $6 billion in debt the company is seeking to restructure in bankruptcy.
The proposed distribution in funds from Chrysler and the U.S. government would have the company pay back unsecured debt owed to the union-led healthcare fund before paying back the secured debt to the Indiana pension fund. Indiana is arguing that this is illegal and should not be allowed to happen and they are asking the court to delay any final resolution so those legal arguments can be heard.
The automaker and the federal government, meanwhile, argue that such a delay could cause irreparable harm to the company and to the larger economy because its factories are shut down during bankruptcy and the resulting loss in revenue puts suppliers at risk of going under.
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