Tiber Creek Partners, a Virginia-based consulting firm, helped Ellume Ltd.—an Australian biotech company—and its U.S. subsidiary secure over $260 million in COVID testing contracts from Uncle Sam. When Ellume didn’t pay up, Tiber Creek sued in its home forum, the Eastern District of Virginia. But the district court dismissed the case on forum non conveniens grounds, and the Fourth Circuit just affirmed, sending the whole affair packing to Australia faster than you can sing “Waltzing Matilda.”
Judge Pamela McAfee overruled a Chapter 7 trustee’s objection to a North Carolina debtor’s homestead exemption claimed in real estate located not in Wake County, but in Corentyne Berbice, Guyana. The case highlights two recurring issues in exemption law:
(1) whether a spouse living abroad may qualify as a “dependent” for purposes of N.C.G.S. § 1C-1601(a)(1), and
In this post-confirmation Chapter 11 dispute, the Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina granted a motion by Fourth Elm Construction, LLC to compel arbitration and stay the adversary proceeding brought by the debtor, JSmith Civil, LLC. The adversary complaint asserted state-law claims for breach of contract and quantum meruit arising from a terminated subcontracting agreement. Fourth Elm relied on the contract’s Article 24 arbitration clause, invoking Section 3 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA).
