Legal

J.C. Penney reached an agreement yesterday to sell its retail business to mall operators Simon Property Group and Brookfield Property Partners, averting a total liquidation. Simon and Brookfield will pay about $300 million in cash and assume $500 million in debt to buy J.C. Penney, lawyers for the retailer said at a Bankruptcy Court hearing. The deal…

Luxury goods giant LVMH is scrapping its $16.2 billion acquisition of Tiffany & Co., CNBC reported. The acquisition would have been the biggest deal ever in the luxury industry. The merger agreement was signed last November and had a closing deadline of no later than Nov. 20, 2020. However, Tiffany requested an extension until Dec. 31,…

The e-commerce business and intellectual property of omnichannel specialty retailer RTW Retailwinds were sold at bankruptcy auction last week to investment firm Saadia Group for $40 million plus assumption of certain liabilities, including honoring gift cards. Assets include websites run by the apparel company, which was previously known as New York & Co. Those sites include www.nyandcompany.com,…

A partnership of the biggest U.S. mall owner, Simon Property Group, and apparel licensing firm Authentic Brands Group (ABG) has been tapped by a bankruptcy court as the winning bidder to acquire denim maker Lucky Brand for $140.1 million, reports CNBC. The two — in a venture known as Sparc — announced last week that they're set to assume the…

Discount retailer Stein Mart has filed for bankruptcy and plans to close its nearly 300 stores. The 112-year-old company blamed its failure on changing consumer habits and the pandemic, both of which "have caused significant financial distress on our business," Stein Mart CEO Hunt Hawkins said in a release on Wednesday. Like other retailers, Stein Mart's operations were…

Sycamore Partners, the private equity firm that recently backed out of a deal to buy Victoria’s Secret, has a good chance of winning an auction to buy the department store chain J.C. Penney out of bankruptcy, MarketWatch reported. The New York-based firm bid $1.75 billion for the department store chain. If it wins the auction,…

On March 2, 2020, a bipartisan group of representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced the Stopping Harmful Offers on Platforms by Screening Against Fakes in E-Commerce Act (the Shop Safe Act 2020) to help stem the growing concern over counterfeit products being offered for sale on online third-party marketplace e-commerce platforms. E-commerce has…

SPARC LLC, a full-service retail operator comprised of the U.S. mall owner Simon Property Group and the apparel licensing firm Authentic Brands Group (ABG), has made a $305 million bid for bankrupt Brooks Brothers, according to a court filing published last week. The offer, still subject to better and higher bids and court approval, will keep at least 125…

Ascena Retail Group, the parent company of women’s apparel brands Ann Taylor, Lane Bryant and Catherines, filed for bankruptcy yesterday and said it will close at least 877, or nearly a third, of its 2,800 stores after years of declining sales and growing debt. The company, founded as Dressbarn in 1962, is one of the nation’s…

It’s been a little more than two years since the Supreme Court of the United States issued its decision on South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. (June 21, 2018), granting states the authority to tax remote sales. Within days of the Wayfair decision, Hawaii, Maine, and Vermont began enforcing economic nexus laws that had been waiting…