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Hotel Lawyers -- featured subjects and articles
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ADA defense and compliance

EB-5 financing

Workouts, bankruptcies & receiverships

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Hotel industry trends

This is Jim Butler, author of www.HotelLawBlog.com and hotel lawyer. Please contact me at Jim Butler at jbutler@jmbm.com or 310.201.3526.

Published on:

28 February 2009

Hotel Lawyer update on economy.

On Friday, the US Commerce Department revised its estimate of the economy’s performance for the last quarter of 2008. Instead of an “abysmal” 3.8% contraction estimated earlier, the revised figures say that our Gross Domestic Product or GDP declined at a scary 6.2% rate. And yesterday was also the first time I have seen the New York Times describe the mess we are in with the “D” word . . .

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Published on:

27 February 2009

Hotel Lawyer with an update on hotel industry prospects.

As we have been reporting, the data coming in from the field continues to show deteriorating economic results in the hotel industry. Here’s the latest on how 2008 ended up, and how 2009 and 2010 are shaping up now, including a special report on the hotel industry from Moody’s.

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Published on:

Hotel Lawyers | Authors of www.HotelLawBlog.com
26 February 2009

Click here for the latest articles on ADA Compliance and Defense.

 

Hotel ADA Compliance and Defense Lawyers: ADAAG implementation delayed by Obama administration.

At www.HotelLawBlog.com, like most of our colleagues in the hotel and restaurant industries, we support the ADA’s purpose and intent to grant reasonable access to disabled persons. But the devil is always in the details. For example, it is one matter to build new facilities in compliance with current reasonable standards, but it is another matter to require a massive retrofit of existing facilities. And ambiguities in the law should not be used, with hindsight, to punish reasonable, good-faith attempts to comply. Critical “details” of great importance are the focus of proposed changes in the guidelines for ADA compliance.

We hope that the “hold” put on implementation of the new guidelines requested by President Obama means that the well-reasoned comments of the AH&LA and other concerned parties will be considered more seriously. See Hospitality Lawyer with urgent ADA warning: You won’t believe what they want to do with ADA now.

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Published on:

23 February 2009

Hotel Lawyers find a ray of sunshine. As the headlines continue to belt out new tales of financial crises, crumbling infrastructure and staggering debt, it’s nice to have an occasional ray of sunshine. Here it is, from Italy!

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Published on:

17 February 2009

Hospitality Lawyers with the latest reports on what is happening at hotels in the U.S. and Europe.

It is always great to get the global perspective from Mark Woodworth of PKF Consulting (see Latest insights from JMBM’s Hotel Attorneys and PKF Consulting on what lies ahead for the hotel industry) and Mark Lomanno of STR, but that is only one perspective.

Here is what the hospitality attorneys of JMBM’s Global Hospitality Group® are hearing from “the field” in real time . . .

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Published on:

15 February 2009

Hotel Lawyers ask: How do we pay for this? And what happens next?

We are all in a panic to get this “crisis” over. It can’t happen too soon. We are resolved to pay “whatever it takes” to do it, but up to this point, our leaders have not given us any detail to show us what they are thinking or whether any of it will work. But with people beginning to look at other currencies to replace the dollar as reserve currency of choice, we have to wonder a bit about our direction.

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Published on:

14 February 2009

Hotel Lawyers on the Bank Bailout bill and implications for the hotel industry. With Senate approval late Friday night, Congress has now approved the bailout bill. President Obama’s approval is a foregone conclusion. But the details of the bailout plan still worry businesses around the country.

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Published on:

11 February 2008

Hotel Lawyers looking for liquidity in hotel finance. As Congress reached a $789.5 billion compromise on the almost stimulus bill, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner testified for a second day in front of a Senate panel and was pressed to reveal more details on how the Administration’s program would work.

It still looks like a “black box” where no one knows what’s going on inside. This won’t help solve the problem.

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Published on:

10 February 2008

Hotel lawyers on the continuing financial crisis. A few minutes ago, on a 61-37 vote, the U.S. Senate approved an $838 billion package to attack the financial crisis. Negotiations will now start to strike a compromise with the House.

Meanwhile, Treasury secretary Timothy F. Geithner’s greatly anticipated unveiling of the administration’s bailout plan details left the markets and many expert’s flat. Expecting more detail on exactly how the plan would work, “investors greeted Mr. Geithner’s speech with dismay and the Dow Jones industrial average shed 300 points” according to the Wall Street Journal.

Here’s what we know.

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Published on:

9 February 2009

Hotel Lawyers contemplating the cleanup ahead. Today and tomorrow may either mark a turning point for economic recovery or just another ledge we bounce off before we plunge into a deeper abyss.

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