Overview: The Fifth Circuit’s highly anticipated decision on December 31, 2024, in the Serta Simmons case has significant implications for borrowers and lenders in financial distress situations. The issue on appeal concerned an uptier transaction, a liability management exercise sometimes referred to as “lender-on-lender violence.” The Fifth Circuit’s opinion addresses the contractual viability of uptier transactions and the enforceability of related indemnities in bankruptcy plans, potentially reshaping the landscape for future financial restructurings.

The bankruptcy court presiding over the FTX Trading bankruptcy last month issued a memorandum opinion addressing valuation of cryptocurrency-based claims and how to “calculate a reasonable discount to be applied to the Petition Date market price” for certain cryptocurrency tokens.

What happens to funds recovered by the trustee after the final plan payment is made in a chapter 13 case? According to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Iowa, absent a plan provision providing otherwise, those funds revert to the debtors.

The debt purchaser in In re McIntosh argued that because it was enforcing a debt that was not listed correctly on the debtor’s bankruptcy schedules, it was entitled to assume the debt had not been discharged. The U.S.

On January 2, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) filed an amicus curiae brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit to reverse a district court’s decision finding that a debt collector lacked the requisite knowledge and intent to violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) when it sent a debt-collection communication prior to any knowledge of the debtor’s bankruptcy filing.

Who owns cryptocurrency held by a cryptocurrency exchange? Do the cryptocurrency assets belong to the customers who deposited the crypto with the exchange, or do the cryptocurrency assets belong to the exchange itself? The answer to this question will have huge significance, both in terms of creditor recoveries as well as preferential transfer liability exposure.

In this second part of our blog exploring the various issues courts need to address in applying the Bankruptcy Code to cryptocurrency, we expand upon our roadmap.

Many authorities and commentators have considered cryptocurrencies, and the blockchains that undergird them, as a potentially disruptive force in the financial industry. Now, that disruption has made its way to a different side of finance—bankruptcy, and during the past year, the United States bankruptcy courts have had to confront many unexpected challenges involved in dealing with cryptocurrency.

How close is too close? The answer to this question can have dire implications for people and companies involved in the cannabis industry who wish to seek bankruptcy protection.

In January, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indiansv. Coughlin after the First Circuit barred the Lac du Flambeau Band from seeking to collect on a $1,600 debt obligation to the tribe’s lending arm, Lendgreen, after the debtor filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy.