Can the foreclosure of a property tax lien on real estate be avoided as a fraudulent transfer under § 584 of the Bankruptcy Code?
That’s the issue before the District Court, on a bankruptcy appeal, in Duvall v. County of Ontario, New York, Case No. 21-cv-06236 in U.S. District Court, WDNY (issued 11/9/2021).
Courts have gone both ways on the issue.
The Difficulty
Recently, the FDIC reported on legal claims and enforcement proceedings taken by the agency during the financial crisis in the years from 2008 to 2013.
On February 3, 2022, Tracer Roofing of Humble, TX filed a petitionfor relief under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas (Case No. 22-30314). The petition indicates that the debtor intends to proceed under Subchapter V of Chapter 11. Tracer Roofing reports $500,000 to $1 million in assets and $10 million to $50 million in liabilities.
A recent case out of the Eastern District of California addressed the split in authority on whether an inaccurate credit report alone is enough to establish a concrete injury in fact for purposes of Article III standing.
An official notice from the Judicial Conference of the United States was just published announcing that certain dollar amounts in the Bankruptcy Code will be increased a larger than usual 10.973% this time for new cases filed on or after April 1, 2022.
When one party can unilaterally prevent a bankruptcy filing – action steps and best practices
Commodities Alert
Restructuring Alert
After reporting its lowest annual recovery from False Claim Act (“FCA”) cases in Fiscal Year (FY) 2020, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) has reportedly bounced back. On February 1, 2021, DOJ released detailed statistics regarding FCA recoveries during FY 2021, during which DOJ reportedly obtained more than $5.6 billion in civil FCA settlements and judgments, of which $5 billion related to matters involving the health care industry.
The Bankruptcy Protector
“I have an opening statement that I give at the beginning of every mediation, and it goes like this”:
- “I don’t have a lot of rules but I have one firm rule and that is nobody uses the ‘F’ word—“final offer.”
“And it’s very true. If I had listened to the parties in the Detroit bankruptcy when they said, ‘This is our final offer,’ and banged their laptops shut, Detroit would still be in bankruptcy. So ignore the ‘F’ word.”
In an opinion that mostly flew under the radar in 2021, Judge Christopher Sontchi from the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (the “Court”) found investment firm Yucaipa American Alliance Fund I, L.P. and Yucaipa American Alliance (Parallel) Fund I, L.P.