New Consumer Bankruptcy Reform Act Implications and the 2023 Congressional Outlook - The Consumer Finance Podcast
The Court of Appeal has reversed the sanction of the Petrofac group’s restructuring plans and allowed the appeal of two dissenting unsecured creditors.Re Petrofac Limited and Petrofac International (UAE) LLC [2025] EWCA Civ...more
On July 25, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed a bankruptcy court’s approval of a break-up fee and expense reimbursement owed to a debtor’s prior lender, after the lender was not the winning bidder...more
In In re Nuverra Environmental Solutions, Inc., Case No. 18-3084, the Third Circuit affirmed the opinion of the District Court for the District of Delaware denying the confirmation appeal of an unsecured noteholder as...more
Originally enacted in 1978, and largely unmodified since, Section 1104(c)(2) of the Bankruptcy Code mandates the appointment of an examiner when a debtor has over $5 million of unsecured debt. Today, that threshold is...more
Eight years after the Delaware bankruptcy court confirmed the chapter 11 plan of Tribune Company and its affiliates, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (the Court) affirmed the bankruptcy court’s...more
“Can an unsecured creditor be better off when the debtor defaults rather than paying off the debt? Yes: Law can be stranger than fiction in the Preference Zone.”—Ninth Circuit Untimely payment by tenants and other obligors...more
The decision overturns a series of cases deemed to have over-expanded a principle preventing shareholders from claiming against third parties for falls in a company’s value. On 15 July 2020, the UK Supreme Court...more
In Futuri Real Estate, Inc. v. Atlantic Trustee Servs., LLC, borrowers Milton and Armida Cortez (the “Borrowers”) obtained three loans secured by separate deeds of trust on their residence: (A) a $415,000 deed of trust in...more
A series of decisions over the past year — on issues such as make-whole premiums, intercreditor agreements, backstops for rights offerings and nonconsensual third-party releases — will likely have a significant impact in 2020...more
On December 19, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (the “Second Circuit”) affirmed a ruling of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (the “District Court”)...more
A business swoops in and buys substantially all of the assets of a competitor in distress, but first does its due diligence and discovers the skeletons in the closet. The purchaser expressly does not assume the competitor’s...more
On August 9, 2019, in a unanimous decision (written by a former bankruptcy judge), the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the confirmation of the Peabody Energy Chapter 11 plan (“Plan”) with a prominent backstopped...more
A three-judge panel for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently held, in the Chapter 11 case In re Ultra Petroleum Corp., No. 17-20793 (5th Cir. Jan. 17, 2019), that (i) a creditor is not “impaired” by a reorganization...more
Individuals have several options when filing bankruptcy. Chapter 13 is often preferred for individuals with regular income who wish to keep their homes and other secured assets. In a Chapter 13 filing, the court will approve...more
In a recent Bennett Jones Update—Property Tax Priorities in Alberta Insolvency Proceedings: Current Uncertainty—we discussed three recent decisions of the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta that had addressed the question of...more
Lawyers who represent debtors in bankruptcy cases, supported by rulings from many bankruptcy judges, have long taken the position that creditors with unsecured claims whose agreements with their debtors provide for payment of...more
Fifth Circuit finds that make-whole premiums should be considered unmatured interest subject to disallowance under Section 502(b)(2) of the Bankruptcy Code to the extent designed to compensate for future interest payments. ...more
In a brief but significant opinion, the United States District Court for the District of Delaware reversed a decision by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware and allowed more than $30 million in...more
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that a secured creditor’s purchase of general unsecured claims to block confirmation of a Chapter 11 plan did not in itself constitute bad faith....more
The Bottom Line: The Eighth Circuit affirmed the District Court of Minnesota and the Bankruptcy Court in holding that section 303(a) of the Bankruptcy Code prohibits the substantive consolidation of non-debtor non-profit...more
Bass, Berry & Sims attorney Chris Lazarini discussed a case involving an arbitration award and bankruptcy filing. The court ruled that where a bankruptcy action has been closed, the bankruptcy trustee's exclusive authority to...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit—which covers federal courts in North Carolina—recently handed a victory to residential real estate lenders dealing with borrowers who file for Chapter 13 bankruptcy...more
Including an unsecured creditor in an agreed payments waterfall does not by itself confer on that unsecured creditor the benefit of a mortgagee’s usual duties on enforcement of security, or a direct claim against the sale...more