What a Post-COVID-19 World: Debtors’ Extraordinary Responses to COVID-19

It has been said by many, in many different ways and in many different settings, that “desperate times call for desperate measures.” Practically since its enactment more than 40 years ago, that idiom has been the foundation of various business and legal strategies employed by those clinging to the Bankruptcy Code while pressing an argument in court for some form of relief.  Indeed, the Bankruptcy Code is, by all accounts, a safe harbor for businesses and people in search of a “fresh start,” a venue to liquidate in an orderly fashion or just the opportunity to demonstrate that it is worth saving through a balance sheet and/or operational restructuring. Current times are desperate indeed, as the impact of the pandemic rages on and, in its path leaves many businesses and industries demolished or, at best, severely impaired. Once again, the Bankruptcy Code has been called upon to provide relief to those in dire need, relief that could certainly be called extraordinary in many respects.