Factors who deal in accounts related to the food industry must be wary of the implications of the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act (PACA). PACA does not only implicate farmers and their distributors but it travels through their distribution chat and can also affect logistic providers, exporters, commission merchants, brokers and dealers, wholesalers, manufacturers, retailers.
Some of the topics to be covered include:
- Origin of PACA
- The 1984 Amendments expanding its scope
- Who can assert PACA Trust rights
- How PACA Trust rights are perfected
- Who may be liable under PACA
- How Factors can avoid liability
Jeffrey A. Wurst is an attorney and arbitrator in New York. He began his career representing factors and has earned a national reputation for his knowledge and experience in commercial finance matters including syndications, C&I, asset-based lending, leasing and factoring transactions, as well as bankruptcy matters, workouts and turnaround situations that may result from such transactions. He is actively involved on behalf of lenders and borrowers in the documentation of commercial finance matters as well as in litigations and workouts that arise out of or in connection with them.
As a litigator, Wurst has appeared on scores of matters on behalf of both lenders and borrowers in the state courts of New York as well as in the Federal District Courts in New York, Northern District of Texas, Northern District of Illinois, and the Eastern District of Michigan as well as in courts of other jurisdictions where he has been admitted pro hac vice. He is admitted and has argued appeals on bankruptcy, financing and lender liability matters in the United States Circuit Courts of Appeals for the Second, Third and Fourth Circuits.
Mr. Wurst is regularly called upon by both lenders and borrowers to represent them when their commercial borrowers seek protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. He has long been recognized both for his skill in obtaining orders authorizing debtors-in-possession to borrow money on a secured basis. He is also well experienced in litigating contested claims for use of cash collateral. Mr. Wurst is also well-versed in the representation of clients who are acquiring the assets or the stock of companies in bankruptcy and is often called upon to represent the interests of commercial landlords in bankruptcy matters.
Wurst is the author numerous articles on factoring and asset based lending and publishes a blog, www.WurstCaseScenario.com, the Commercial Finance Newsletter, which is followed by thousands of readers.