Going through bankruptcy is traumatic enough; doing so and still having your credit report still list your discharged debts as "delinquent" is enough to drive some people to litigation. And that's how several credit agencies found themselves on the receiving end of a series of Fair Credit Reporting Act class actions.

In bankruptcy proceedings, is a class action superior to the claims administration process as a vehicle for resolving claims under the federal and New York State Workers Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (the “WARN Act”)?  In Schuman v. The Connaught Grp., Ltd. (In re The Connaught Grp., Ltd.), Case No. 12-01051, Slip Op. (Apr.

Affiliated Lender Provisions and Debt Buybacks - Unenforceability of Bankruptcy Voting Proxies Expose Flaws in “Market Standard” Provisions

GGW LLC and its affiliates (“GGW”), which produce and distribute the soft core pornography videos known as “Girls Gone Wild”, recently filed for relief under chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. The filing follows years of legal troubles for the company’s founder, Joe Francis, including criminal charges of racketeering and tax evasion, and

The general rule is that an IRA is exempt from the claims of creditors. Indeed, the Federal Bankruptcy Code provides in Sections 522(b)(3)(C) and 522(d)(12) that a retirement plan, including an IRA and a Roth IRA, is an exempt asset in bankruptcy. However in Green v. Pershing L.L.C., N.D. Okla., No. 4:12-cv-00296-CVE-FHM, 10/22/12, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma ruled that the plan sponsor was not liable for turning over Mr. Green’s entire IRA to the IRS in response to the Notice of Levy and demand the IRS served on Pershing L.L.C. (“Pershing”).

Kevyn Orr, a University of Michigan Law School graduate and former partner at the law firm Jones Day, has been selected by Governor Rick Snyder as Detroit’s Emergency Financial Manager (EFM). As EFM, Orr will be responsible for overhauling Detroit’s finances and city services, including negotiating with creditors and unions to restructure the city’s obligations and reduce its budget deficits and long-term debt. While Orr has stated he hopes to avoid a Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing, he has described this assignment as the “Olympics of Restructuring.”

In re Big M, Inc., No. 13-10233 (DHS), 2013 WL 1681489 (Bankr. D.N.J. April 17, 2013). In Big M, the Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey (the “Bankruptcy Court”) held that the debtor’s privilege did not pass to the creditors’ committee, even though the creditors’ committee obtained authority to investigate certain of the debtor’s causes of action, because the committee was acting as a fiduciary to creditors as opposed to the debtor’s estate.

Last month’s decision out of the Delaware District Court in Woolery, et al. v.

In an important decision for private equity sponsors and other insiders who advance loans to their businesses, on April 30, 2013, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in In re Fitness Holdings International confirmed that bankruptcy courts may recharacterize debt as equity, but held that recharacterization is determined by state law. In its ruling, the Ninth Circuit joins the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in deferring to state law on this issue and explicitly rejects the various federal law based tests that have been adopted by a majority of U.S.

As electronic discovery has become more prevalent and voluminous, national standards for the preservation of evidence have evolved dramatically in the past decade. Through a proliferation of electronic discovery orders involving discovery compliance, courts have addressed when the duty to preserve evidence arises, signifying a party’s duty to issue a “litigation hold.” Courts have not answered, however, whether a party can withhold documents generated before issuing a litigation hold on the basis of work product protection.