The perception that public employee pension obligations cannot be impaired in bankruptcy suffered a damaging blow several months ago in the City of Detroit bankruptcy case, and has now been fatally wounded by 

Two years ago in Stern v Marshall, the Supreme Court surprised many observers by placing constitutional limits on the jurisdiction of the United States Bankruptcy Courts. The Court, in limiting the ability of a bankruptcy court judge to render a final judgment on a counterclaim against a party who had filed a claim against a debtor’s bankruptcy estate, re-opened separation of powers issues that most bankruptcy practitioners had thought settled since the mid-1980s. While the

Meredith Whitney, one of the first financial analysts to foresee the collapse of the housing market, famously predicted in December 2010 that a wave of municipal bond defaults was on the way. The wave, however, has yet to materialize, and the bankruptcy filing of Stockton, California will likely not change th

The well known travails of Fred Wilpon, the principal owner of the New York Mets, have all converged this past week. He, his partner Saul Katz and their families and affiliated enterprises (the “Wilpon/Katz Group”) lost several hundred million dollars when Bernard Madoff’s long running Ponzi scheme finally unraveled at the height of the financial crisis in 2008.

Few issues in bankruptcy create as much contention as disputes regarding the right of setoff. This was recently highlighted by a decision in the chapter 11 case of Orexigen Therapeutics in the District of Delaware.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman ruled last week in the chapter 11 case of Sabine Oil & Gas that Sabine could utilize the U.S.

General Motors LLC (“New GM”) came into being in the summer of 2009, when it acquired substantially all of the assets of General Motors Corporation (“Old GM”) in a sale undertaken pursuant to section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code.  The July 2009 Sale Order approved by U.S.

Everyone gathered last week at the meeting convened by Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr knew that the news would be dire. Nonetheless, Orr’s report on Detroit’s financial condition and his proposal for the treatment of the city’s creditors – an offer of approximately ten cents on the dollar for the city’s unsecured bonds - still managed to drop jaws. Therein lies

The chapter 11 case of mortgage lender and servicer Residential Capital, LLC (“ResCap”) is fascinating on a number of levels. Its parent company, Ally Financial, Inc.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has taken under advisement the latest case involving the now contentious issue of credit bidding.