Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP

Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP, one of the most influential professional services firms, offers fully integrated legal and strategic consulting services to U.S. and international clients across a range of industries, including: health care; entertainment, advertising, marketing and media; financial services; technology, venture capital and e-commerce; real estate and land use; and energy and natural resources. Three hundred professionals combine powerful national litigation and sophisticated transactional capabilities with government access and a range of specialized resources to provide clients with complete legal, strategic and policy solutions.

Manatt's strategic growth emphasizes markets of influence nationally (Los Angeles, New York, Washington D.C., Palo Alto, Orange County and San Francisco); within key state capitals (Albany, NY and Sacramento, Calif.). Its wholly owned subsidiary, Manatt Jones Global Strategies, LLC, develops and implements strategies to expand clients' businesses and facilitate their effective competition in global markets. Manatt Health Solutions (MHS) is an interdisciplinary policy and business advisory division of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP, one of the nation's premier law and consulting firms. MHS aligns business strategy, public policy and the law to develop forward-thinking solutions in an evolving healthcare landscape.

www.manatt.com; www.manattjones.com; www.manatthealthsolutions.com.

A New California Court of Appeal Decision Might Breathe Some New Life into Unfair Competition Law Claims against Insurers
Carlos Needham, December 7, 2009
In Zhang v. Superior Court (California Capital Insurance Co.), Case No. E047207 (filed October 19, 2009), the Fourth District of the California Court of Appeal reversed the trial court's decision to sustain a demurrer on a policyholder's claim for false advertising under California's Unfair...

California Air Resources Board Releases Broad Cap-and-Trade Plan: Questions about Allowance Allocation Remain
Craig A. Moyer, Dana P. Palmer, December 7, 2009
In a preliminary step toward implementation of a greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program under the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32), the California Air Resources Board (“CARB”) on November 24, 2009 released a broad proposal identifying sources of emissions to be capped and the...

CRE Workout Guidance -- Pray and Delay No Longer Works
Harold P. Reichwald, November 12, 2009
For the last several months the markets have been anticipating a wave of defaults by commercial real estate borrowers and the likely effect those defaults would have on bank balance sheets and on commercial mortgage-backed securities. With this expected wave in mind, lenders have been engaged in...