American Consolidated Transportation Companies, Inc v RBS Citizens NA (In re American Consolidated Transportation Companies, Inc), Adversary No 10-00154, Bankruptcy No 09-26062 (Bankr ND Ill July 13, 2010)

CASE SNAPSHOT

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In this edition of the Landlord’s Corner, we review various cases that address the (i) rights of landlords to recover their property post-rejection, (ii) whether payments pursuant to a termination of lease agreement constitute preferential transfers and (iii) whether a lease could be retroactively rejected in the absence of a formal motion to reject.

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The United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (the "Delaware Bankruptcy Court"), recently in In re Leslie Controls, Inc., Bankr. D. Del., Case No. 10-12199, expounded on whether attorney-client and attorney work-product privileged documents remained protected from discovery under the common interest doctrine. The common interest doctrine permits counsel representing different clients with similar legal interests to share information without having to disclose that information to others.

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We are seeing more and more challenges by borrowers to swaps. No big surprise since, with falling interest rates over the past few years, the borrowers are on the wrong end of the transactions. Although swaps are considered independent of the loans, they are often secured by the same collateral and are usually crossdefaulted with the loans, so the obligations that arise from early termination (which can be significant) become part of the collection process and are being fought vigorously by borrowers.

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Deutsche Bank National Trust Co. v. Tucker, No. 09-5867 (6th Cir. 2010)

CASE SNAPSHOT

In resolving a conflict within the Sixth Circuit, the Court of Appeals has held that chapter 13 debtors who propose in their plan of reorganization to cure the arrearage on their mortgage loan are required to pay all fees and costs required by the mortgage and non-bankruptcy law, even if the mortgage lender is undersecured. Put another way, mortgage lenders may include such fees and costs in their proofs of claim.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

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