On March 29, 2016, the Second Circuit addressed the breadth and application of the Bankruptcy Code's safe harbor provisions in an opinion that applied to two cases before it.  The court analyzed whether: (i) the Bankruptcy Code's safe harbor provisions preempt individual creditors' state law fraudulent conveyance claims; and (ii) the automatic stay bars creditors from asserting such claims while the trustee is actively pursuing similar claims under the Bankruptcy Code.  In In re Tribune Co.

As we previously reported here at the Weil Bankruptcy Blog, in Burberry Limited and Burberry USA v.

A recent bankruptcy court decision from the influential Southern District of New York permitted a debtor to reject executory contracts with midstream gathers as an exercise of sound business judgment. In In re Sabine Oil & Gas Corporation, the court issued an advisory ruling in which it determined that certain provisions of the rejected contracts were not covenants that ran with the land, and thus could be rejected thereby relieving the debtor of a financial hardship.

The failure of debtors to accurately list and value assets in their bankruptcy schedules is certainly not a new phenomenon. Recently, however, we are witnessing an increase in bankruptcy cases where debtors are using clever and deliberate means to omit assets or disguise the true value of their assets in an attempt to thwart recovery by creditors. While the U.S. trustee's or a creditor's remedy for such bad acts is to seek a denial of the debtor's discharge under 11 U.S.C.

At issue in In re Legacy Corp.was the right to allowance and payment as an administrative expense of the professional fees and expenses of the Movant, a holder of a prepetition gift card claim against the Debtors, for his involvement in the resolution and settlement of prepetition gift card holder claims.

As discussed in an earlier post called “Going Up: Bankruptcy Code Dollar Amounts Will Increase On April 1, 2016,” various dollar amounts in the Bankruptcy Code and related statutory provisions were increased for cases filed on or after today, April 1, 2016.

In February 2016, Energy Future Holdings Corp. (“EF”), which obtained confirmation of a chapter 11 plan on December 3, 2015, prevailed at the district court level in related appeals brought by first- and second-lien noteholders of bankruptcy court orders disallowing the noteholders’ claims for make-whole premiums allegedly due under their note indentures. The forum in this hotly contested and long-running dispute has now moved to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

Enforceability of Make-Whole Premiums in Bankruptcy

A corporation’s asset sale “was structured [by its insiders] so as to fraudulently transfer assets in order to avoid paying [a major creditor] what it was owed,” held the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on March 22, 2016. Continental Casualty Co. v. Symons, 2016 WL 1118566, at *6 (7th Cir., March 22, 2016).

Florida’s proceedings supplementary statute (Fla. Stat. 56.29) provides a wide range of collection options to judgment creditors. Over the years, courts inconsistently applied various parts of the statute, which had remained virtually unchanged since its enactment approximately a century ago. The result was widespread confusion among the courts and practitioners concerning how parties were summoned into court, how to commence proceedings, and parties’ rights under the statute.

It always starts so easy. Borrower comes in and wants to borrow money. Lenders want some form of collateral to secure (potentially) a loan and the Borrower happily agrees to provide, or pledge, collateral to secure a loan. Common examples are the Borrower pledging inventory, equipment or receivables (assuming of course there is no real estate to lien with a mortgage). Lender, either internally, or with outside counsel, prepares the necessary security agreement to document the pledge of collateral. This is generally the description of a secured transaction.