The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts (the District Court) recently issued an opinion in the Paul Sagendorph bankruptcy case reversing the Bankruptcy Court's holding that a debtor can force a secured creditor to take title to its collateral in complete satisfaction of the creditor's secured claim.1 In reversing the decision of the Bankruptcy Court, the District Court held that the plain language of Sections 1322(b)(9) and 1325(a)(5)(C)2 does not empower a debtor to force a secured creditor to accept title to its collateral over that creditor's objection.3

In a recent Hunton & Williams client alert, we discussed some of the issues relating to the termination of credit default swap agreements that were pending before the Lehman bankruptcy court, including the enforceability of so-called “flip clauses.” (“Swap Termination and the Subordination of Termination Payments in the Lehman Bankruptcy,” December 2009.) Recently, the court ruled for Lehman on many of these issues. The court’s ruling (Lehman Brothers Special Financing Inc.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s September 15, 2008 bankruptcy was an event of default under thousands of derivatives contracts to which a Lehman entity was a party and for which Lehman Brothers Holdings was the guarantor. This default entitled the vast majority of Lehman’s counterparties to terminate these contracts, and almost all were terminated.