All too often, after a debtor receives his or her discharge in bankruptcy and after the case has been closed, a creditor whose debt has been discharged does something which may appear to constitute an effort to collect that debt.  This may range from the sending of an informational account statement by the mortgagee on a home surrendered in the bankruptcy, filing a proof of claim in a subsequent bankruptcy case, to filing of a lawsuit to collect the discharged debt.

Payments made by a debtor within 90 days of a bankruptcy petition are generally avoidable as preferences under section 547 of the Bankruptcy Code.  Many exceptions and defenses exist, however, to ensure that creditors are not discouraged from conducting business with companies that may be at risk of filing

When your company receives notice from a customer that the customer has filed for bankruptcy protection, what do you do? What should you do? First, DO NOT ignore it. The bankruptcy most likely will not go away. Instead, take these five steps to ensure you do not end up sideways in the bankruptcy.

1. Notify your Accounts Receivable Department not to send further collection notices or seek to collect the debt.

In Jubber v. SMC Electrical Products, Inc. et al. (In re C.W. Mining Co.), Case No. 13-4175 (Aug. 10, 2015), the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed that a single payment made by a debtor within the 90-day preference period to a seller, with whom the debtor had never done business, may satisfy the elements to be a payment in the “ordinary course” and, thus, not subject to a preference claim by the trustee.

The Trustee for the Liquidation of MF Global Inc. – the defunct futures commission merchant that filed for bankruptcy in October 2011 – received approval from the US Bankruptcy Court overseeing its dissolution to make a final, cumulative 95 percent distribution on all allowed general unsecured creditor claims.

On August 4, 2015, the Second Circuit weighed in for the first time on the circumstances in which the confirmation of a Chapter 11 plan could strip a secured creditor of its lien. In City of Concord, N.H. v.

Introduction

For many parents with school-age kids, the month of August marks the end of summer vacation and the start of the new school year, and in this spirit, a post on practice fundamentals seems appropriate.  Specifically, attorneys are responsible for (i) maintaining an accurate address of record to ensure proper service and (ii) monitoring their case docket to avoid missing a deadline.  While this may seem elementary, the recent decision from Judge Teel of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Columbia nonetheless reinforces a point that is particularly applicable to a

The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) is objecting to Patriot Coal’s proposed plan to sell the majority of its operating assets. Patriot Coal proposes using a “stalking horse bidder,” which is when the best bidder gets some incentives before the auction. These incentives are intended to increase the value of the starting bid and eventually result in higher bidding overall.

In its opinion in Dewsnup v. Timm, 502 U.S.