In a highly-anticipated decision on a long-running bondholder dispute, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued its judgment last week in Marblegate Asset Management LLC v Education Management Corp. It concluded that “Section 316(b) [of the US Trust Indenture Act 1939] prohibits only non-consensual amendments to an indenture’s core payment terms”, i.e. the amount of principal and interest owed and the maturity date.

The Supreme Court may revisit two of the many questions left open by its much-discussed decision in Stern v. Marshall, 131 S. Ct. 2594 (2011), an opinion famous not only for its subject – the estate of the late actress and model Anna Nicole Smith – but also for redefining the allocation of judicial authority between an Article III federal district court and a bankruptcy court. Appellants have filed a petition for a writ of certiorari seeking review of the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Executive Benefits Insurance Agency v.