With one exception, the Top 10 List of "public company" (defined as a company with publicly traded stock or debt) bankruptcies of 2016 consisted entirely of energy companies—solar, coal, and oil and gas producers—reflecting, as in 2015, the dire straits of those sectors caused by weakened worldwide demand and, until their December turnaround, plummeting oil prices. The exception came from the airline industry. Each company gracing the Top 10 List for 2016 entered bankruptcy with assets valued at more than $3 billion.
In the November/December 2014 edition of the Business Restructuring Review, we discussed a decision handed down by the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware addressing the meaning of “unreasonably small capital” in the context of constructively fraudulent transfer avoidance litigation. In Whyte ex rel. SemGroup Litig. Trust v.
In a historic decision with the potential to end 15 years of litigation between the Republic of Argentina and holdout bondholders from the financially strapped South American nation’s 2005 and 2010 sovereign debt restructurings, Judge Thomas Griesa of the U.S.
The chapter 15 cases of OAS S.A. ("OAS") and its affiliates represent the second time in less than one year that a U.S. bankruptcy court has been confronted with a serious challenge to the recognition of insolvency proceedings in Brazil by a group of U.S. creditors. The latest challenge focused on two separate lines of attack: (1) whether the "foreign representative" authorized to commence a chapter 15 case can be appointed by the company rather than the foreign insolvency court; and (2) whether Brazilian insolvency law is manifestly contrary to U.S. public policy.
Even after the U.S. Supreme Court in RadLAX Gateway Hotel, LLC v. Amalgamated Bank, 132 S. Ct. 2065 (2012), pronounced in no uncertain terms that a secured creditor must be given the right to “credit bid” its claim in a bankruptcy sale of its collateral, the controversy over restrictions on credit bidding continues in the courts. A ruling recently handed down by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has added a new wrinkle to the debate. InBaker Hughes Oilfield Operations, Inc. v. Morton (In re R.L. Adkins Corp.), 2015 BL 116996 (5th Cir. Apr.
BUSINESS RESTRUCTURING REVIEW VOL. 21 • NO.
In yet another chapter in the tortured saga of the fallout from the failed 2007 leveraged buyout ("LBO") of media giant The Tribune Co. ("Tribune") in a transaction orchestrated by real-estate mogul Sam Zell, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit largely upheld lower court dismissals of claims asserted by Tribune's chapter 11 liquidation trustee against various shareholders, officers, directors, employees, and financial advisors for, among other things, avoidance and recovery of fraudulent and preferential transfers, breach of fiduciary duties, and professional malpractice.
There is longstanding controversy concerning the validity of release and exculpation provisions in non-asbestos trust chapter 11 plans that limit the potential exposure of various parties involved in the process of negotiating, implementing and funding the plan. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Washington recently contributed to the extensive body of case law addressing these issues in In re Astria Health, 623 B.R. 793 (Bankr. E.D. Wash. 2021).
Courts sometimes disagree over whether provisions in a borrower's organizational documents designed to prevent the borrower from filing for bankruptcy are enforceable as a matter of federal public policy or applicable state law. There has been a handful of court rulings addressing this issue in recent years, with mixed results.
The Situation: In the past few weeks, due to the severe impact of the COVID-19 crisis on non-essential businesses forced to close and terminate employees after filing for chapter 11 protection, bankruptcy courts have been confronted with requests by debtors to temporarily suspend their bankruptcy cases using the courts' equitable powers and a seldom-used provision of the Bankruptcy Code: 11 U.S.C. § 305(a).