A secured creditor's right to "credit bid" the amount of its allowed claim in a bankruptcy sale of its collateral is an important creditor protection codified in section 363(k) of the Bankruptcy Code. Even so, a ruling recently issued by the U.S.
Whether a contract is "executory" such that it can be assumed, rejected, or assigned in bankruptcy is a question infrequently addressed by the circuit courts of appeals. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit provided some rare appellate court-level guidance on the question in Spyglass Media Group, LLC v. Bruce Cohen Productions (In re Weinstein Company Holdings LLC), 997 F.3d 497 (3d Cir. 2021).
In cases under both chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code and its repealed predecessor, section 304, U.S. bankruptcy courts have routinely recognized and enforced orders of foreign bankruptcy and insolvency courts as a matter of international comity. However, U.S. bankruptcy courts sometimes disagree over the precise statutory authority for granting such relief, because the provisions of chapter 15 are not particularly clear on this point in all cases.
In In re Arcapita Bank B.S.C., 2021 WL 1603608 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. Apr. 23, 2021), the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York addressed the interaction between purported setoff rights arising under investment agreements governed by Islamic law and the Bankruptcy Code's safe harbors protecting the exercise of non-debtors' rights under financial contracts.
Madoff
AML changes for court-appointed liquidators
Important changes for court-appointed liquidators to the regulations under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 (Act) will come into force on 9 July 2021. These changes provide that, for a court-appointed liquidator:
The High Court has released its judgment in Re Halifax NZ Limited (In liq) [2021] NZHC 113, involving a unique contemporaneous sitting of the High Court of New Zealand and Federal Court of Australia.
It is generally recognized that a bankruptcy court has the power—either equitable or statutory—to recharacterize a purported debt as equity if the substance of the transaction belies the labels the parties have given it. A ruling handed down by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York provides a textbook example of such a recharacterization. In In re Live Primary, LLC, 2021 WL 772248 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. Mar.
In Stream TV Networks, Inc. v. SeeCubic, Inc., 2020 WL 7230419 (Del. Ch. Dec. 8, 2020), the Delaware Court of Chancery held that the assets of Stream TV Networks, Inc. ("Stream"), an insolvent Delaware-incorporated 3-D television technology company, could be transferred to an affiliate of two of Stream's secured creditors in lieu of foreclosure without seeking the approval of Stream's shareholders under section 271 of the General Corporation Law of Delaware ("DGCL") or Stream's certificate of incorporation.
On April 19, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of a landmark 2019 decision issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit regarding the applicability of the Bankruptcy Code's safe harbor for certain securities, commodity, or forward contract payments to prevent the avoidance in bankruptcy of $8.3 billion in payments made to the shareholders of Tribune Co. as part of its 2007 leveraged buyout ("LBO").