Commercial Real Estate Brokerages in an Uncertain Russian Market
March 28, 2022 —
Cait Horner & Adam J. Weaver - Gravel2Gavel Construction & Real Estate Law BlogSeveral commercial real estate firms have joined the growing list of companies temporarily suspending – or outright terminating – property and facility management operations in Russia amid economic sanctions and mounting international pressure. CBRE is the latest to make such a move, discontinuing its Russian leasing, investment and property management operations and denouncing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a statement issued March 7th. Other major players, including Savills, Knight Frank, and Colliers, have already suspended operations in the country, citing similar concern for international sanctions and the humanitarian impact of the invasion. Colliers is going even further to suspend operations in Belarus as well. Recently, global real estate service giant JLL switched course, issuing a formal statement that “with great sadness,” it will begin the process of separating from its domestic operations in Russia, though not commenting on whether the separation will be temporary or permanent. This is a significant change from just earlier this month , where, when asked about pulling operations from the country, JLL stated it would stay abreast of the situation abroad and continue to ensure the safety of its people and clients.
Now that CBRE and Dallas-based JLL have joined the list, Houston-based powerhouse Hines appears to be continuing its “wait and see” approach. Hines currently owns Russian assets valued at $2.9 billion, nearly 2 percent of its entire $160 billion asset portfolio, and its property management portfolio manages more than 243 million square feet worldwide. While other firms have temporarily suspended current operations, Hines has gone so far as to say it will avoid servicing any future investments in the country, though it did similarly condemn Russia’s actions. With JLL’s recent decision , if Hines does take a stronger stance, it will likely happen soon.
Reprinted courtesy of
Cait Horner, Pillsbury and
Adam J. Weaver, Pillsbury
Ms. Horner may be contacted at cait.horner@pillsburylaw.com
Mr. Weaver may be contacted at adam.weaver@pillsburylaw.com
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Montrose III: Appeals Court Rejects “Elective Vertical Stacking,” but Declines to Find “Universal Horizontal Exhaustion” Absent Proof of Policy Wordings
September 14, 2017 —
Christopher Kendrick & Valerie A. Moore – Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLPIn Montrose Chemical Corp. v. Superior Court (No. B272387; filed 8/31/17) (Montrose III), a California appeals court found that excess insurance is not triggered for continuous and progressive losses until there has been horizontal exhaustion of underlying insurance, but there is no “universal horizontal exhaustion” because the order or sequence in which excess policies may be accessed depends on the specific policy wording at issue.
The coverage lawsuit was initiated by Montrose in 1990, when it was named in environmental actions for continuous and progressive property damage emanating from its Torrance chemical plant since the 1960s. Montrose had varying levels of insurance coverage throughout, but the total limits and attachment points of differing levels of excess coverage in any given year had changed from year-to-year. The coverage action was stayed in 2006 due to concern of prejudice to the underlying defense, but the stay was lifted in 2014 with Montrose entering a consent decree in the CERCLA action.
Reprinted courtesy of
Christopher Kendrick, Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP and
Valerie A. Moore, Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP
Mr. Kendrick may be contacted at ckendrick@hbblaw.com
Ms. Moore may be contacted at vmoore@hbblaw.com
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California Supreme Court Holds “Notice-Prejudice” Rule is “Fundamental Public Policy” of California, May Override Choice of Law Provisions in Policies
November 12, 2019 —
Anthony L. Miscioscia & Timothy A. Carroll - White and Williams LLPOn August 29, 2019, in Pitzer College v. Indian Harbor Insurance Company, 2019 Cal. LEXIS 6240, the California Supreme Court held that, in the insurance context, the common law “notice-prejudice” rule is a “fundamental public policy” of the State of California for purposes of choice of law analysis. Thus, even though the policy in Pitzer had a choice of law provision requiring application of New York law – which does not require an insurer to prove prejudice for late notice of claims under policies delivered outside of New York – that provision can be overridden by California’s public policy of requiring insurers to prove prejudice after late notice of a claim. The Supreme Court in Pitzer also held that the notice-prejudice rule “generally applies to consent provisions in the context of first party liability policy coverage,” but not to consent provisions in the third-party liability policy context.
The Pitzer case arose from a discovery of polluted soil at Pitzer College during a dormitory construction project. Facing pressure to finish the project by the start of the next school term, Pitzer officials took steps to remediate the polluted soil at a cost of $2 million. When Pitzer notified its insurer of the remediation, and made a claim for the attendant costs, the insurer “denied coverage based on Pitzer’s failure to give notice as soon as practicable and its failure to obtain [the insurer’s] consent before commencing the remediation process.” The Supreme Court observed that Pitzer did not inform its insurer of the remediation until “three months after it completed remediation and six months after it discovered the darkened soils.” In response to the denial of coverage, Pitzer sued the insurer in California state court, the insurer removed the action to federal court and the insurer moved for summary judgment “claiming that it had no obligation to indemnify Pitzer for remediation costs because Pitzer had violated the Policy’s notice and consent provisions.”
Reprinted courtesy of
Timothy Carroll, White and Williams and
Anthony Miscioscia, White and Williams
Mr. Carroll may be contacted at carrollt@whiteandwilliams.com
Mr. Miscioscia may be contacted at misciosciaa@whiteandwilliams.com
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Construction Defects and Commercial General Liability in Illinois
October 25, 2013 —
CDJ STAFFNathan B. Hinch writes on his blog about construction defect law in Illinois. Mr. Hinch notes that he has been providing continuing legal education presentations about commercial general liability insurance and coverage of defective construction. In Illinois, for coverage to exist, “there must be ‘an occurrence’ that results in ‘property damage.’”
The Illinois courts have determined that “defective work is not an ‘accident,’ reasoning that the contractor intended to do the work, whether it turned out to be defective or not,” however the court “found that there was an ‘accident’ and therefore an ‘occurrence’ in a case where a contractor allegedly caused property damage by negligently backfilling around a residential basement.” And ‘property damage’ must be “damage to property other than the work.”
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Drones, Googleplexes and Hyperloops
March 05, 2015 —
Garret Murai – California Construction Law BlogI don’t know if it’s just me, or if there has been a lot of news lately about technology and construction:
Although flying in the face of some bad press recently, the use of drones in construction. And we’re talking about more than just cameras with propellers.
Battle of the (tech) Titans, as Google battles it out with the likes of LinkedIn and Microsoft for development rights in Mountain View, California for its futuristic new Googleplex. And we’re talking about more than just cameras with propellers.. And Google is only the most recent tech titan with development plans. Facebook’s Frank Gehry-designed campus expansion is in the works and Apple’s “spaceship” campus has already broken ground. We’ve come a long way since the HP garage in Palo Alto, baby!
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Garret Murai, Wendel Rosen Black & Dean LLPMr. Murai may be contacted at
gmurai@wendel.com
MBS’s $500 Billion Desert Dream Just Keeps Getting Weirder
August 29, 2022 —
Vivian Nereim - BloombergOne day last September, a curious email arrived in Chris Hables Gray’s inbox. An author and self-described anarchist, feminist, and revolutionary, Gray fits right into Santa Cruz, Calif., where he lives. He’s written extensively about genetic engineering and the inevitable rise of cyborgs, attending protests in between for causes such as Black Lives Matter.
While Gray had taken some consulting gigs over the years, he’d never received an offer like this one. The first shock was the money: significantly more than he’d earned from all but one of his books. The second was the task: researching the aesthetics of seminal works of science fiction such as Blade Runner. The biggest surprise, however, was the ultimate client: Mohammed bin Salman, the 36-year-old crown prince of Saudi Arabia.
MBS, as he’s known abroad, was in the early stages of one of the largest and most difficult construction projects in history, which involves turning an expanse of desert the size of Belgium into a high-tech city-region called Neom. Starting with a budget of $500 billion, MBS bills Neom as a showpiece that will transform Saudi Arabia’s economy and serve as a testbed for technologies that could revolutionize daily life. And as Gray’s proposed assignment suggested, the crown prince’s vision bears little resemblance to the cities of today. Intrigued, Gray took the job. “If I can be honest with how I see the world, I’ll pretty much put my work out to anyone,” he says.
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Vivian Nereim, Bloomberg
Lien Waivers Should Be Fair — And Efficient
February 18, 2015 —
Christopher G. Hill – Construction Law MusingsThis week for our Guest Post Friday here at Construction Law Musings, we welcome back my good friend Scott Wolfe. Scott, a thought leader in the construction industry, combines his construction background, tech experience, entrepreneurial spirit, and legal education to bring a unique perspective to the industry’s construction payment problem. Scott is the founder of zlien, a venture-backed construction payment platform. A licensed attorney in six states, his writing has appeared in the New York Times, CFMA’s Building Profits, Supply House Times, Construction Executive, and tED Magazine. He has been a Keynote Speaker for the American Subcontractors Association annual conference, and spoken at CFMA events.
Lien waivers are perhaps the most legally and practically complicated documents exchanged in the construction industry. Unfortunately, this results in huge corporate inefficiencies, and worse, provides an opportunity for some parties to exert undue leverage over others.
Lien waivers — or lien releases, as they are commonly (but mistakenly) called — aren’t supposed to be complicated, though. They are designed to make the complex construction payment process easy and fair.
This article will address why that is, how it works, and where things have gone awry.
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Christopher G. Hill, Law Office of Christopher G. Hill, PCMr. Hill may be contacted at
chrisghill@constructionlawva.com
Wall Street Is Buying Starter Homes to Quietly Become America’s Landlord
February 27, 2023 —
Patrick Clark - BloombergJavier Vidana started out as a real estate agent in 2013, when Arizona’s Salt River Valley seemed wide open. It was the aftermath of a housing market crash that had seen the typical home value in the Phoenix metro area fall more than 50%, and a single parent with good credit could tap loan programs geared toward first-time homeowners and find a pretty decent place to live. For Vidana, the challenge was convincing potential clients that a house was something they wanted to own. “We were on the phone begging people to buy,” he says. “There was no buyer confidence whatsoever.”
The economy crawled forward, and the housing market with it. Vidana made a specialty of tutoring young buyers on real estate basics. Soon he was supplementing his commission income by selling how-to PDFs on his website and collecting ad revenue on his YouTube channel. Then the pandemic sparked a boom that gave him something new to explain.
Americans responded to the work-from-home era by house shopping, and no big city was hotter than Phoenix. The median home was worth about $285,000 at the beginning of the pandemic; it was valued at $435,000 two years later. It wasn’t unheard of for a seller to receive 50 offers or more, or for a prospective buyer to make offers on a dozen different homes before finally closing a deal.
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Patrick Clark, Bloomberg
