Two recent Supreme Court of Canada decisions demonstrate that the corporate attribution doctrine is not a one-size-fits-all approach.

一、问题的提出

债务人向债权人借款，由保证人提供保证担保。借款到期后，债务人与保证人均未偿还该笔借款。后法院裁定受理保证人的破产申请，债权人因此向保证人的管理人申报债权，要求保证人就债务人所欠借款及利息承担保证责任。管理人审查并确认了该笔债权。（简见以下表1案型法律关系表）根据《最高人民法院关于适用〈中华人民共和国民法典〉有关担保制度的解释》（下称“《民法典担保制度解释》”）第22条之规定，[1]保证债权应当自保证人的破产申请受理时起停止计息。与债务人破产时保证债权随同主债权停止计息不同的是，保证人破产导致保证债权停止计息，却不能反向及于主债权也停止计息。其后债务人向债权人清偿了部分债务。此时，管理人将面临如下难题：在主债权未停止计息的情况下，债权人获得债务人部分清偿后，在保证人的破产程序中，管理人先前认定的债权数额是否须要调整？如果须要调整，应该如何进行调整？鉴于该问题在实务中相对较为前沿，笔者曾多次尝试检索与之相关的法规、判例、理论文献、实务文章等，对于解决该问题的资料寥寥无几。虽无前人的解决方案可供参照，但该问题仍然亟待解决。在缺乏相应法律规范的情况下，下文将通过民法基础理论的推演，尝试为解决这一问题提供思路。

Court approval of a sale process in receivership or Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (“BIA”) proposal proceedings is generally a procedural order and objectors do not have an appeal as of right; they must seek leave and meet a high test in order obtain it. However, in Peakhill Capital Inc. v.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit recently ruled in a case involving a Chapter 13 debtors’ attempt to shield contributions to a 401(k) retirement account from “projected disposable income,” therefore making such amounts inaccessible to the debtors’ creditors.^[1] For the reasons explained below, the Sixth Circuit rejected the debtors’ arguments.

Case Background

A statute must be interpreted and enforced as written, regardless, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, “of whether a court likes the results of that application in a particular case.” That legal maxim guided the Sixth Circuit’s reasoning in a recent decision^[1] in a case involving a Chapter 13 debtor’s repeated filings and requests for dismissal of his bankruptcy cases in order to avoid foreclosure of his home.

On January 14, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court decided City of Chicago, Illinois v. Fulton (Case No. 19-357, Jan. 14, 2021), a case which examined whether merely retaining estate property after a bankruptcy filing violates the automatic stay provided for by §362(a) of the Bankruptcy Code. The Court overruled the bankruptcy court and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in deciding that mere retention of property does not violate the automatic stay.

Case Background

When an individual files a Chapter 7 bankruptcy case, the debtor’s non-exempt assets become property of the estate that is used to pay creditors. “Property of the estate” is a defined term under the Bankruptcy Code, so a disputed question in many cases is: What assets are, in fact, available to creditors?

Once a Chapter 7 debtor receives a discharge of personal debts, creditors are enjoined from taking action to collect, recover, or offset such debts. However, unlike personal debts, liens held by secured creditors “ride through” bankruptcy. The underlying debt secured by the lien may be extinguished, but as long as the lien is valid it survives the bankruptcy.

A Chapter 13 bankruptcy plan requires a debtor to satisfy unsecured debts by paying all “projected disposable income” to unsecured creditors over a five-year period. In a recent case before the U.S.

One of the objectives of the Bankruptcy Code is to ensure that each class of creditors is treated equally. And one of the ways that is accomplished is to allow the debtor’s estate to claw back certain pre-petition payments made to creditors. Accordingly, creditors of a debtor who files for bankruptcy are often unpleasantly surprised to learn that they may be forced to relinquish “preferential” payments they received before the bankruptcy filing.