The ability of a creditor to exercise its contractual, common law or statutory rights under non-bankruptcy law to set off amounts owed to a debtor in bankruptcy against the debtor's obligations to the creditor gives...more
In This Issue:
Tenant's Election to Retain Possession of Rejected Lease Premises Preserves Obligations Under Related Agreements -
Section 365(h) of the Bankruptcy Code provides special protection for tenants if a...more
In In re Nuverra Environmental Solutions, Inc., 834 Fed. App'x 729 (3d Cir. 2021), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit handed down a long-awaited ruling that could have addressed, but ultimately did not address,...more
There is longstanding controversy concerning the validity of release and exculpation provisions in non-asbestos trust chapter 11 plans that limit the potential exposure of various parties involved in the process of...more
Section 365(h) of the Bankruptcy Code provides special protection for tenants if a trustee or chapter 11 debtor-in-possession ("DIP") rejects an unexpired lease under which the debtor was the lessor by giving the tenant the...more
On October 26, 2020, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas issued a long-awaited ruling on whether natural gas exploration and production company Ultra Petroleum Corp. ("UPC") must pay a make-whole...more
One year ago, we wrote that the large business bankruptcy landscape in 2019 was generally shaped by economic, market, and leverage factors, with notable exceptions for disastrous wildfires, liabilities arising from the opioid...more
In the latest chapter of more than a decade of litigation involving efforts to recover fictitious profits paid to certain customers of Bernard Madoff's defunct brokerage firm as part of the largest Ponzi scheme in history,...more
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 a leading precedent handed down in 2018—Sabine Oil & Gas Corp. v. Nordheim Eagle Ford Gathering, LLC (In re Sabine Oil & Gas Corp.), 734 Fed. Appx. 64 (2d Cir. May 25, 2018)—the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit...more
After reaching a four-year high in 2018, the volume of heath care and medical industry bankruptcy filings in the United States continues to be significant. According to statistics provided by New Generation Research's...more
2/5/2021
/ Affordable Care Act ,
Automatic Stay ,
Chapter 11 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Fee-for-Service ,
Health Care Providers ,
Hospitals ,
Long Term Care Facilities ,
Physicians ,
Section 553
In 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit made headlines when it ruled that creditors' state law fraudulent transfer claims arising from the 2007 leveraged buyout ("LBO") of Tribune Co. ("Tribune") were...more
12/29/2020
/ Bankruptcy Code ,
Chapter 11 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Financial Institutions ,
Fraudulent Conveyance ,
Fraudulent Transfers ,
Leveraged Buyout ,
Merit Management Group v FTI Consulting ,
Preemption ,
Safe Harbors ,
Section 546(e) ,
Stock Repurchases ,
Unjust Enrichment
The ability of a bankruptcy trustee or chapter 11 debtor-in-possession ("DIP") to obtain credit or financing during the course of a bankruptcy case is often crucial to the debtor's prospects for either maintaining operations...more
Postpetition financing provided by pre-bankruptcy shareholders or other "insiders" is not uncommon in chapter 11 cases as a way to fund a plan of reorganization and allow old shareholders to retain an ownership interest in...more
The ability of a bankruptcy trustee to avoid certain transfers of a debtor's property and to recover the property or its value from the transferees is an essential tool in maximizing the value of a bankruptcy estate for the...more
In Hafen v. Adams (In re Hafen), 616 B.R. 570 (B.A.P. 10th Cir. 2020), a bankruptcy appellate panel from the Tenth Circuit ("BAP") held that the bankruptcy court is the only court with subject-matter jurisdiction to decide...more
12/17/2020
/ Article III ,
Bankruptcy Appellate Panel (BAP) ,
Bankruptcy Code ,
Bankruptcy Court ,
Chapter 11 ,
Chapter 7 ,
Debtors-in-Possession ,
Exclusive Jurisdiction ,
Fraudulent Transfers ,
Standing ,
Statutory Authority ,
Subject Matter Jurisdiction
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
12/14/2020
/ Administrative Expenses ,
Appeals ,
Appellate Courts ,
Bankruptcy Code ,
Bankruptcy Court ,
Chapter 7 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Corporate Taxes ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Income Taxes ,
Internal Revenue Code (IRC) ,
IRS ,
Tax Liability ,
Tax Returns
In the latest chapter of more than a decade of contentious litigation surrounding the 2007 leveraged buyout ("LBO") and ensuing bankruptcy of media conglomerate Tribune Co. ("Tribune"), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third...more
Courts sometimes disagree over whether provisions in a borrower's organizational documents designed to prevent the borrower from filing for bankruptcy are enforceable as a matter of federal public policy or applicable state...more
10/22/2020
/ Bankruptcy Code ,
Chapter 11 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Common Stock ,
Corporate Charters ,
Creditors ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Lenders ,
Limited Liability Company (LLC) ,
Mortgage-Backed Securities ,
Operating Agreements ,
Parent Corporation ,
Public Policy ,
REIT ,
Special Purpose Entities ,
Uniform Commercial Code (UCC)
The practice of conferring "derivative standing" on official creditors' committees to assert claims on behalf of a bankruptcy estate in cases where the debtor or a bankruptcy trustee is unwilling or unable to do so is a...more
10/21/2020
/ Bankruptcy Code ,
Breach of Duty ,
Chapter 11 ,
Chapter 7 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Creditors ,
Debtors-in-Possession ,
Equitable Subordination ,
Limited Liability Company (LLC) ,
Real Party in Interest ,
Standing
"Cramdown" chapter 11 plans, under which a bankruptcy court confirms a plan over the objection of a class of creditors, are relatively common. Less common are the subset of cramdown plans known as "cram-up" chapter 11 plans....more
10/21/2020
/ Bankruptcy Code ,
Borrowers ,
Change of Control ,
Chapter 11 ,
Charter Communications ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Cram Up ,
Cramdown ,
Credit Agreements ,
Creditors ,
First-Lien ,
Ipso Facto Clauses ,
Reorganizations ,
Senior Lenders ,
Special Purpose Entities
On June 22, 2020, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ("FERC") issued an order concluding that FERC and the U.S. bankruptcy courts have concurrent jurisdiction to review and address the disposition of natural gas...more
10/20/2020
/ Bankruptcy Code ,
Bankruptcy Court ,
Chapter 11 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Exclusive Jurisdiction ,
Executory Contracts ,
FERC ,
Filed-Rate Doctrine ,
PG&E ,
Power Purchase Agreements ,
Section 365
The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York recently added some weight to the majority rule on a hot-button issue for claims traders. In In re Firestar Diamond, Inc., 615 B.R. 161 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 2020),...more
"Safe harbors" in the Bankruptcy Code designed to insulate non-debtor parties to financial contracts from the consequences that normally ensue when a counterparty files for bankruptcy have been the focus of a considerable...more
10/16/2020
/ Bankruptcy Code ,
BAPCPA ,
Chapter 11 ,
Collateralized Debt Obligations ,
Credit Default Swaps ,
Flip Transactions ,
Ipso Facto Clauses ,
Non-Debtors ,
Safe Harbors ,
Special Purpose Vehicles ,
Swap Agreements
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