Recently, two significant distressed companies with thousands of commercial leases, Rite Aid and WeWork, each filed chapter 11 bankruptcy cases, seeking in part to rationalize their geographic footprints through the rejection of a substantial portion of their lease portfolios.

On July 5, 2022, cryptocurrency brokerage Voyager Digital filed for chapter 11 in the Southern District of New York Bankruptcy Court, citing a short-term “run on the bank” due to the “crypto winter” in the cryptocurrency industry generally and the default of a significant loan made to a third party as the reasons for its filing. At Voyager’s first day hearing on July 8, 2022, the Bankruptcy Court asked the critical question of whether the crypto assets on Voyager’s platform were property of the estate or its customers.

On June 10, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed an amended complaint for civil money penalties and other relief under Section 5 of the FTC Act prohibiting “unfair or deceptive acts or practices” and Section 521 of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) prohibiting the use of fraudulent statements to obtain consumer information.

On May 20, 2019, in Mission Product Holdings, Inc. v. Tempnology, LLC, 587 U.S. ___ (2019), the Supreme Court resolved an area of ongoing concern for parties to trademark licenses. The court addressed a circuit split on whether a trademark licensee may continue to use a trademark for the term of the license, after the license has been rejected in bankruptcy.