What Is New for Former Students of Silver State Helicopters?

Our office received numerous phone calls and e-mails regarding an "Order Scheduling Settlement Conference" for May 10, 2011 in the Silver State Helicopters, LLC bankruptcy case that was mailed out by the Court to creditors. This Order does not apply to former SSH students and it does not affect them. It relates to a dispute between the SSH and its major secured creditor Orix.

We are waiting for Student Loan Xpress ("SLX") to send new bills to former SSH students who were covered by the class action settlement agreement with SLX. These bills will reflect the reduced principal and interest amounts set forth in the class action settlement agreement approved by the Judge Merryday. The attorneys for SLX continue to tell me that they do not know when the new bills will be mailed out.

Senior Associate Attorney Georgeann Nicol and I have begun settlement discussions with counsel for SLX regarding clients of ours who were former SSH students who obtained loans from SLX to attend SSH but were not members of the class action. This includes former SSH students who were not enrolled at the time of the filing of the SSH Bankruptcy. At the request of counsel for SLX, these discussions were postponed until after the class action settlement was approved by the Court.

KeyBank continues to be the most difficult bank for us to deal with in connection with the loans that it made to former SSH students.
KeyBank's offer to our clients was based on the number of flight hours that the student had at SSH, not on the flight certifications obtained. This is generally less favorable to our clients than the number of flight certifications standard that was agreed to by SLX in the class action. To date, only four of our clients with KeyBank loans accepted KeyBank’s settlement offer.

The remainder of our former SSH students with KeyBank loans are still waiting for a better offer and / or a favorable ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal with regards to the District Court's dismissal of the proposed California class action suit against KeyBank brought by Andrew August and his firm Pinnacle Law Group, LLP.