On April 19, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held in MOAC Mall Holdings LLC v. Transform Holdco LLC that Section 363(m) of the Bankruptcy Code is not jurisdictional. The decision requires parties timely to invoke that provision, or else risk forfeiting its protections. The decision also continues the Supreme Court’s trend of interpreting statutes to be non-jurisdictional (and thus waivable or forfeitable) in the absence of a clear congressional statement to the contrary.
Background
The U.S. Supreme Court held today in Mission Product Holdings, Inc. v. Tempnology, LLC that a trademark licensee may retain certain rights under a trademark licensing agreement even if the licensor enters bankruptcy and rejects the licensing agreement at issue. Relying on the language of section 365(g) of the Bankruptcy Code, the Supreme Court emphasized that a debtor’s rejection of an executory contract has the “same effect as a breach of that contract outside bankruptcy” and that rejection “cannot rescind rights that the contract previously granted.”
Cancellation of debt a key element of most restructurings generally triggers taxable income. The German tax authorities had issued an administrative decree (the "Tax Restructuring Decree" - Sanierungserlass), however, declaring that, upon the satisfaction of certain requirements and conditioned on forfeiture of any loss carry forwards, the cancellation of debt income ("CODI") would not be taxed.
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Introduction