Financial Crisis
Trump’s Lawyer Calls Bank Suit Over Chicago Hotel Loan ‘Legal Stupidity’
Posted Dec 1, 2008, 07:53 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
The lead lender on a hotel and condominium tower in Chicago has sued Donald Trump, seeking to enforce a $40 million personal guarantee.
The suit by Deutsche Bank Trust Co. was filed in a state court in Manhattan, report Crain’s Chicago Business and the Chicago Tribune. The bank is also asking for dismissal of a suit filed by Trump earlier this month that seeks extension of a $640 million construction loan for the project, the Trump International Hotel & Tower.
Trump filed the $3 billion suit after missing a $334 million loan repayment. The complaint contends the financial crisis triggered a force majeure clause in the loan agreement permitting extensions.
Trump’s lawyer, Steven Schlesinger of Garden City, N.Y., told the Tribune he’ll move to have the Deutsche Bank suit heard in the same court where Trump’s suit was filed. “We’ll have a knock-down, drag-out for the next six months over this,” he said. “This project will be completed and sold out before this gets resolved. … This is, in my mind, legal stupidity.”
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Posted by B. McLeod - 1 month, 1 week, 22 hours, 41 minutes ago
I am not sure I am understanding this. Is the upshot that Trump can’t pay the loan, and can’t honor his guaranty, but this is somehow legally excused by recharacterizing his misjudgment of market risks as “force majeure”?