Trump’s Lawyers Told the Court That No One Would Give Him a Bond. Then He Got a Lifeline, but They Didn’t Tell the Judges.
Trump’s Lawyers Told the Court That No One Would Give Him a Bond. Then He Got a Lifeline, but They Didn’t Tell the Judges.
An appeals court reduced Trump’s bond by more than 60% after his attorneys claimed it was a “practical impossibility” to pay the full amount. Their failure to disclose a proposal from a billionaire financier may have violated ethics rules.
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Another unexplored angle would be getting multiple, smaller bonds.
Oh, nobody will loan you $464 million? How about finding 4 lenders at $116 million? Can you do that?
Thats not how loans necessarily work though. If I go to a bank and ask for $100m, but they see I already owe $350m to other lenders, they'll say no, because they know they arent getting paid back until after the other 3. So if they think trump has $450m in assets, just give him whole amount, and if they don't think he has that much, any money theyre giving him is just being thrown away.
This is a guy notorious for lying about his assets and not paying debts. Even giving him $125m is a bad idea, but the odds of getting paid back get even worse if you arent first in line.
But this isn't a loan. Federating together a large bond is a normal practice in the court system with high value bonds. All of the big bonding agencies are willing and able to do that kind of piece & part together a bond to distribute the risk.
Now, whether even that kind of distributed risk would work is another story. You don't do anyone for this person unless he pays up front. His entire business strategy is to get someone else to do the work or front the resources for a venture, then fail to pay up followed by suing everyone to make it too painful to work with him. He just burns through business relationships because he's nothing more than a leech that kills hosts that are foolish enough to touch his business operations in any way shape or form.
That’s why you put them under an NDA and do them all at the same time!
This guy gets it!
That's valid, but even then, a $120m bond is less risk that 4x companies supplying $120m bonds. When the time comes to pay out and you need to get your collateral, if there is only $150m available to actually pay out, you get yours, vs having to split it multiple ways, or otherwise not getting a payout at all.
And that's assuming you can get 4x companies to even throw in $120m. He is so unreliable that had to get an unlicensed company to even get that much, so I doubt he's going to find 4x legit companies to team up.
But then again, requiring the full amount should still just be enforced. If no one wants to provide bond, thats his problem, not the court's. I certainly don't get to say "Well I can't get bond" and get to have the amount lowered. If I say that, I just don't get to appeal.
edit:
That absolutely IS how it works and it has been done many times before, how the fuck is this upvoted so much? I misunderstood the actual premise of your reply.
He can syndicate the bond.
This is Ben Meiselas, who is a Kaepernick Partner, Geragos Global Partner, Aliu & Co. Partner, USC Law Lecturer: https://youtu.be/BiJRKrhp7B8?t=682
In fact, New York attorney general, Letitia James submitted what you and I predicted she would do this week after Donald Trump filed that brief last week saying it was impossible to be able to post a bond and that this is so unprecedented. New York attorney general, Letitia James filed a surreply Starting point is 00:13:40 which was accepted by the appellate division and she's showed numerous companies that are real companies with real assets in cases that have posted bonds the same size or slightly less or some that were larger. She talked about in her brief how, you know, one of the things you can do, you don't have to go to one surety, you can go to a syndicate of sureties who come together so that the risk is minimized and you have a tower of sureties. And she also said Donald Trump's brief provided not a scintilla of evidence of the steps he even went through in order to secure a surety bond. All Donald Trump's brief did was his lawyer said he just doesn't have the cash or the means to do it.
This is Michael Popok, who is a NY trial lawyer/strategist talking about how it can be broken up https://youtu.be/N8VnxKT6ezA?feature=shared&t=372
Judge Angoron issued an enhanced monitoring order giving the monitor, who is a former federal judge, Barbara Jones, enhanced superpowers over the corporation, over Donald Trump's business affairs, including the ability to both monitor all compliance and financial reporting and interactions with counterparties, interactions with bonding companies, insurity companies, that's already in place. And that has not been stayed by this order, meaning that Trump is gonna have to go through the monitor and report to the monitor about his interactions with bonding companies in order to raise the $175 million. But with Donald Trump bragging that he has $500 million cash in the bank, combined with the other assets we know he has in real estate and the ability to either get a irrevocable letter of credit from a bank ability to either get a irrevocable letter of credit from a bank or to syndicate the bond beyond just one bonding company, use two or three surety companies, each taking, let's say, a $50 or $75 million piece to total up to $175 million
Sorry, my phrasing of "not how it works" is more about willingness from the lender side and not "allowed" to. He couldn't even get a bond for for the reduced amount without going through a shady company. He's certainly not going to get 4 bonds.
use two or three surety companies, each taking, let’s say, a $50 or $75 million piece to total up to $175 million.
Even with split up bonds to reduce risk in a normal situation, the bonding company is going to assess risk based on the full cost of the bond. They personally only have to put up less money, so the "how much do i lose if everything goes wrong" scenario is less, but "how likely is it something goes wrong" involves "the person on trial for lying about finances doesn't actually have enough to cover the full bond, so perhaps that increases the odds of me getting my money back"
Why would you throw away $50 million dollars. It's "less risk" only because it's less money. But if you think he's shady enough that likely you never see the money again, then why put up any money, especially if you have to compete with others to get the payout.
If someone said "You can gamble $50 million or $400 million. If you win you get 5%, but the odds of winning are only 10%, and if you lose you only get back $10 million." You would obviously opt to gamble the $50 million. You want to lose less money. The payout isn't worth it given the odds. If you were then told "oh, you can just opt out and avoid the dumpster fire of a deal", you are going to choose to opt out. No amount of "it's less risk" will make this a good deal for a bonding company.
So yes, syndicating the bond is an option, no smart bonding company is going to touch this, which means even with syndicating it will be hard for him to find enough incompetent, shady, unlicensed bonding companies.
And to be clear, this is not me arguing in favor of why any amount of money was unfair to expect Trump to acquire. This is me pointing out why he's never going to get the money from legit sources because he's a financial dumpster fire, and they should just throw the book at him instead of continuously going easy on him.
edit:
But with Donald Trump bragging that he has $500 million cash in the bank, combined with the other assets we know he has in real estate
Trump bragging about made up numbers don't make anyone more confident about his assets. Both the value of his assets and how much stake in those assets is actually his is a thing he notoriously lies about. He's even been found guilty about lying about his finances I think.
If he actually had that money money just in the bank, none of this would be an issue, but the thing is... it's not true.
okay yes I was thrown by the phrasing, thanks for expanding on things, great points!
YES he absolutely can by syndicating the bond. Letitia James said he could:
This is Ben Meiselas, who is a Kaepernick Partner, Geragos Global Partner, Aliu & Co. Partner, USC Law Lecturer: https://youtu.be/BiJRKrhp7B8?t=682
In fact, New York attorney general, Letitia James submitted what you and I predicted she would do this week after Donald Trump filed that brief last week saying it was impossible to be able to post a bond and that this is so unprecedented. New York attorney general, Letitia James filed a surreply Starting point is 00:13:40 which was accepted by the appellate division and she's showed numerous companies that are real companies with real assets in cases that have posted bonds the same size or slightly less or some that were larger. She talked about in her brief how, you know, one of the things you can do, you don't have to go to one surety, you can go to a syndicate of sureties who come together so that the risk is minimized and you have a tower of sureties. And she also said Donald Trump's brief provided not a scintilla of evidence of the steps he even went through in order to secure a surety bond. All Donald Trump's brief did was his lawyer said he just doesn't have the cash or the means to do it.
This is Michael Popok, who is a NY trial lawyer/strategist talking about how it can be broken up https://youtu.be/N8VnxKT6ezA?feature=shared&t=372
Judge Angoron issued an enhanced monitoring order giving the monitor, who is a former federal judge, Barbara Jones, enhanced superpowers over the corporation, over Donald Trump's business affairs, including the ability to both monitor all compliance and financial reporting and interactions with counterparties, interactions with bonding companies, insurity companies, that's already in place. And that has not been stayed by this order, meaning that Trump is gonna have to go through the monitor and report to the monitor about his interactions with bonding companies in order to raise the $175 million. But with Donald Trump bragging that he has $500 million cash in the bank, combined with the other assets we know he has in real estate and the ability to either get a irrevocable letter of credit from a bank ability to either get a irrevocable letter of credit from a bank or to syndicate the bond beyond just one bonding company, use two or three surety companies, each taking, let's say, a $50 or $75 million piece to total up to $175 million.