A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has voided its previous near explicit declaration that make-whole provisions are always unmatured interest, and therefore subject to disallowance under section 502(b) of the Bankruptcy Code in Ultra Petroleum.

A recent decision from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, In re Tribune Co. Fraudulent Conveyance Litigation, Case No. 12-2652, 2019 WL 1771786 (S.D.N.Y. April 23, 2019) (Cote, J.), has re-examined application of the “securities safe harbor” under section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code, 11 U.S.C. §§ 101–1532, to the transferees of “financial institutions” in so-called “conduit transactions,” following the United States Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Merit Management Group, LP v. FTI Consulting, Inc., 138 S. Ct. 883 (2018).

A recent New York court decision has cleared the way for lenders to seek recovery against non-recourse carve-out, or “bad boy,” guarantors during a pending mortgage foreclosure action if a borrower files for bankruptcy. In so doing, the court answered a question that, surprisingly, was thus far apparently unanswered in a reported decision in New York: whether New York’s “one action rule” under RPAPL § 1301 bars a lender from obtaining a money judgment against a “bad boy” guarantor for the debt if a mortgage borrower files for bankruptcy while a foreclosure action is underway.

Recent court decisions in the state of Michigan—Wells Fargo Bank, NA v. Cherryland Mall, ____ N.W.2d _____, 2011 WL 6785393 (Mich.App. 2011) (Cherryland) in the Michigan intermediate appellate court and 51382 Gratiot Avenue Holdings Inc. v. Chesterfield Development Company, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 142404 (E.D. Mi. Dec.