The ability of a bankruptcy trustee or chapter 11 debtor-in-possession ("DIP") to avoid fraudulent transfers is an important tool promoting the bankruptcy policies of equality of distribution among creditors and maximizing...more
2/9/2021
/ Bankruptcy Code ,
Bankruptcy Trustees ,
Chapter 7 ,
Debtors ,
Debtors-in-Possession ,
Fraudulent Transfers ,
Internal Revenue Code (IRC) ,
IRS ,
Look-Back Measurement Period ,
Section 548 ,
Statute of Limitations ,
Tax Avoidance ,
UFTA
In This Issue:
Eighth Circuit Rules that Bankruptcy Code's Cap on Lease Damage Claims Applies to Fraudulent Transfer Judgment -
In Lariat Cos. v. Wigley (In re Wigley), 951 F.3d 967 (8th Cir. 2020), the U.S. Court of...more
9/1/2020
/ Bankruptcy Plans ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Consumer Bankruptcy ,
Corporate Restructuring ,
Creditors ,
Debtors ,
Force Majeure Clause ,
Reorganizations ,
Safe Harbors ,
Securities Transactions ,
Successor Liability
Valuation is a critical and indispensable part of the bankruptcy process. How collateral and other estate assets (and even creditor claims) are valued will determine a wide range of issues, from a secured creditor's right to...more
Appointment of PROMESA Financial Oversight Board Was Constitutional -
In Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico v. Aurelius Investment, LLC, No. 18-1334, 590 U.S. ___ (June 1, 2020), the Supreme Court...more
8/31/2020
/ Appointments Clause ,
Article III ,
Aurelius Investment LLC v Puerto Rico ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Congressional Authority ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Creditors ,
De Facto Officer Doctrine ,
Debtors ,
Extraterritoriality Rules ,
Financial Oversight and Management Board (Oversight Board) ,
Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico v Aurelius Investment LLC ,
Officers of the United States ,
Puerto Rico ,
Puerto Rico Oversight Management and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) ,
SCOTUS
A basic tenet of bankruptcy law, premised on the legal separateness of a debtor prior to filing for bankruptcy and the estate created upon a bankruptcy filing, is that prepetition debts are generally treated differently than...more
3/2/2020
/ Administrative Expenses ,
Administrative Priority ,
Bankruptcy Code ,
Bankruptcy Court ,
Bifurcation ,
Chapter 11 ,
Chapter 7 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Congressional Intent ,
Debtors ,
Gross Receipts Tax ,
Income Taxes ,
Legislative History ,
Tax Liability
Chapter 11 Plan Distributions Are Not Collateral Covered by Intercreditor Agreement's Waterfall Provision -
In In re Energy Future Holdings Corp., 2019 WL 2535700 (3d Cir. June 19, 2019), a panel of the U.S. Court of...more
9/26/2019
/ Bankruptcy Code ,
Bankruptcy Reform ,
Chapter 11 ,
Chapter 15 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Corporate Restructuring ,
Cross-Border ,
Debt Restructuring ,
Debtors ,
Financial Institutions ,
Insolvency ,
Trump Administration
In Trinity 83 Dev., LLC v. ColFin Midwest Funding, LLC, 917 F.3d 599 (7th Cir. 2019), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that section 363(m) of the Bankruptcy Code does not moot an appeal involving a...more
8/20/2019
/ Appeals ,
Article III ,
Asset Purchaser ,
Bankruptcy Code ,
Chapter 11 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Debtors ,
Equitable Mootness ,
Equitable Relief ,
Mootness ,
Sale of Assets ,
Section 363 ,
Standing
In In re O’Reilly, 598 B.R. 784 (Bankr. W.D. Pa. 2019), the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania denied the petition of a foreign bankruptcy trustee for recognition under chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy...more
In Mission Product Holdings, Inc. v. Tempnology, LLC, 139 S. Ct. 652, 2019 WL 2166392 (U.S. May 20, 2019), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the rejection in bankruptcy of a trademark license agreement, which constitutes a...more
8/20/2019
/ Bankruptcy Appellate Panel (BAP) ,
Bankruptcy Code ,
Breach of Contract ,
Chapter 11 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Debtors ,
Debtors-in-Possession ,
Exclusions ,
Executory Contracts ,
IP License ,
Mission Product Holdings Inc v Tempnology LLC ,
Rescission ,
Reversal ,
SCOTUS ,
Section 365 ,
Split of Authority ,
Trademark Licenses ,
Trademarks ,
Trustees
Second Circuit Rules That Bankruptcy Code's Fraudulent Transfer Recovery Provisions Can Reach Foreign Transferees -
In In re Picard, Trustee for the Liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Inv. Sec. LLC, 917 F.3d 85 (2d Cir....more
6/21/2019
/ Banking Sector ,
Chapter 11 ,
Chapter 15 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Corporate Restructuring ,
Cross-Border Transactions ,
Debt Restructuring ,
Debtors ,
FDCPA ,
Financial Institutions ,
Foreclosure ,
Insolvency ,
International Litigation
In In re Tribune Co. Fraudulent Conveyance Litig., 2019 WL 1771786 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 23, 2019), the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York denied a litigation trustee’s motion to amend a complaint seeking to...more
6/19/2019
/ Avoidance ,
Bankruptcy Code ,
Chapter 11 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Creditors ,
Debtors ,
Financial Institutions ,
Fraudulent Transfers ,
Intermediaries ,
Leveraged Buyout ,
Merit Management Group v FTI Consulting ,
Safe Harbors ,
SCOTUS ,
Section 546(e) ,
Split of Authority ,
Trustees
In Momentive Performance Materials Inc. v. BOKF, NA (In re MPM Silicones, L.L.C.), 874 F.3d 787 (2d Cir. 2017), cert. denied, 138 S. Ct. 2653 (2018), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed a number of lower...more
6/19/2019
/ Appeals ,
Bankruptcy Court ,
Chapter 11 ,
Chapter 13 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Cramdown ,
Debt Restructuring ,
Debtors ,
Debtors-in-Possession ,
First-Lien ,
Interest Rates ,
Make-Whole Premium ,
Noteholders ,
Remand ,
Secured Notes ,
Subordination ,
Trustees
The ability of a bankruptcy trustee to avoid fraudulent or preferential transfers is a fundamental part of U.S. bankruptcy law. However, when an otherwise avoidable transfer by a U.S. entity takes place outside the U.S. to a...more
6/19/2019
/ Avoidance ,
Bankrtupcy Code Section 550 ,
Bankruptcy Code ,
Bankruptcy Court ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Cross-Border Transactions ,
Debtors ,
Extraterritoriality Rules ,
Foreign Jurisdictions ,
Fraudulent Transfers ,
Fraudulent Wire Transfers ,
Jurisdiction ,
Ponzi Scheme ,
Preferential Transfers ,
SIPA
For more than a century, courts in England and Wales have refused to recognize or enforce foreign court judgments or proceedings that discharge or compromise debts governed by English law. In accordance with a rule (the...more
In Tanguy v. West (In re Davis), 2018 WL 4232063 (5th Cir. Sept. 5, 2018), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit revisited the circumstances under which section 363(m) of the Bankruptcy Code moots an appeal of a...more
U.S. courts have a long-standing tradition of recognizing or enforcing the laws and court rulings of other nations as an exercise of international "comity." Prior to the enactment of chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code in 2005,...more
On October 26, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari in Mission Products Holdings, Inc. v. Tempnology, LLC, No. 17-1657, 2018 WL 2939184 (U.S. Oct. 26, 2018). In granting the petition, the Court agreed to...more
On June 4, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Lamar, Archer & Cofrin, LLP v. Appling, No. 16-1215, 138 S. Ct. 1752, 2018 WL 2465174 (U.S. June 4, 2018), that an individual debtor's false statement about a single asset, as...more
8/14/2018
/ Adversary Proceedings ,
Appeals ,
Bankruptcy Code ,
Business Assets ,
Chapter 7 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Congressional Intent ,
Debtors ,
Dischargeable Debts ,
False Statements ,
Judgment Creditors ,
Lamar Archer & Cofrin LLP v Appling ,
Oral Communications ,
Reaffirmation ,
SCOTUS ,
Tax Returns
In In re SIMA Int'l, Inc., 2018 WL 2293705 (Bankr. D. Conn. May 17, 2018), the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Connecticut ruled that a chapter 7 trustee's rejection of an intellectual property license agreement did...more
8/14/2018
/ Bankruptcy Code ,
Chapter 7 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Debtors ,
Debtors-in-Possession ,
Intellectual Property Litigation ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
IP License ,
Petition for Writ of Certiorari ,
Section 365 ,
Split of Authority ,
Trademark Licenses ,
Trademarks
In the service of the Bankruptcy Code’s goals of giving debtors a "fresh start" and ensuring that estate assets are fairly and equally distributed among similarly situated creditors, the Bankruptcy Code contains an array of...more
On April 3, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order that, in light of its recent ruling in Merit Management Group LP v. FTI Consulting Inc., 138 S. Ct. 883, No. 16-784 (Feb. 27, 2018), the Court would defer consideration...more
6/8/2018
/ Avoidance ,
Bankruptcy Code ,
Chapter 11 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Debtors ,
Financial Institutions ,
Fraudulent Transfers ,
Intermediaries ,
Merit Management Group v FTI Consulting ,
Safe Harbors ,
SCOTUS ,
Section 546(e) ,
Split of Authority ,
Trustees
In Crystallex International Corp. v. Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., 879 F.3d 79 (3d Cir. 2018), a divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that transfers by nondebtor subsidiary corporations to their ultimate...more
6/8/2018
/ Aiding and Abetting ,
Alter Ego ,
Arbitration ,
Avoidance ,
Bankruptcy Code ,
Business Assets ,
Creditors ,
Cross-Border ,
DE Supreme Court ,
Debtors ,
Fraudulent Transfers ,
Statutory Interpretation ,
Subsidiaries ,
UFTA ,
Venezuela
Even if a U.S. court has jurisdiction over a lawsuit involving foreign litigants, the court may conclude that a foreign court is better suited to adjudicate the dispute because either: (i) it would be more convenient, fair,...more
6/8/2018
/ Aiding and Abetting ,
Avoidance ,
Bankruptcy Code ,
Breach of Duty ,
Chapter 11 ,
Chapter 15 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Cross-Border ,
Debtors ,
Foreign Bankruptcies ,
Foreign Debt ,
Forum Non Conveniens ,
Forum Shopping ,
Fraudulent Transfers ,
Jurisdiction
The ability of a trustee or chapter 11 debtor-in-possession to avoid fraudulent or preferential transfers is a fundamental part of U.S. bankruptcy law. However, when a transfer by a U.S. entity takes place outside the U.S. to...more
4/20/2018
/ Avoidance ,
Bankruptcy Code ,
Bankruptcy Court ,
Chapter 11 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Cross-Border Transactions ,
Debtors ,
Extraterritoriality Rules ,
Fraudulent Transfers ,
Fraudulent Wire Transfers ,
Jurisdiction ,
Preferential Transfers
In determining whether a U.S. bankruptcy court should provide the representative of a foreign debtor with various forms of assistance in a case under chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code, the court must consider, consistent with...more
4/19/2018
/ Bankruptcy Code ,
Bankruptcy Court ,
Chapter 15 ,
Choice-of-Law ,
Creditors ,
Debtors ,
Foreign Debt ,
Foreign Jurisdictions ,
Insolvency ,
Jurisdiction ,
The Model Law ,
Venue