Nearly 50 years has passed since the last major change in bankruptcy law. The financial landscape now where debtors go through bankruptcy is very different. Is the Bankruptcy Code still achieving its fundamental goals, and are there ways to improve it?
Word that the historic French franchise Girondins de Bordeaux filed for bankruptcy recently rocked European football. But one force in particular poses an even broader threat to the sustainability of the elite level of French soccer than relegation: media rights.
At the motion to dismiss stage, courts usually won't consider affirmative defenses. This issue arose recently in a preferential transfer case, where a defendant sought to dismiss a complaint by arguing it was a mere conduit, not an initial transferee.
Appellate courts continue to use common sense when disposing of constructively fraudulent transfer appeals, as recent decisions show.
The U.S. Trustee has recently taken the position that GUC Trusts (disbursements made by creditor trusts formed under bankruptcy plans) should be required to pay fees on account of their own disbursements to creditors. The outcomes in three recent bankruptcy cases highlight different approaches to addressing the U.S. Trustee's argument: closing bankruptcy cases early, deferring the issue to a later date, or focusing on the distinction between contingent and non-contingent assets.
Until now, a successful reorganization assumed the debtor could confirm a plan with nondebtor releases and injunctions based on less than full creditor consensus. Now that nonconsensual releases in Chapter 11 plans are no longer permitted, will debtors have a more difficult time obtaining a 105(a) injunction?
Recent appellate decisions reflect a distaste for appeals from bankruptcy court sanction orders. A split Fourth Circuit even refused to hear such an appeal. Other courts tend to limit sanctions or, alternatively, accept a bankruptcy judge's findings under a stringent "abuse of discretion" standard.
If a foreign debtor doesn't reside in, have a domicile or place of business in, or have property in the U.S., can the foreign representative of the debtor utilize Chapter 15 to obtain discovery to use in the foreign proceeding?
A bankruptcy court properly held that derivative claims based on "piercing the corporate veil theory of liability [were] released under" a confirmed reorganization plan, but that direct "claims for negligent undertaking" were not released and "could be asserted" in state court against the debtors' equity sponsors.
"… [T]he term 'securities contract' as used in [Bankruptcy Code] §546(e) unambiguously includes contracts involving privately held securities," The Seventh Circuit held in Petr v. BMO Harris Bank, N.A.
