The court-fashioned doctrine of "equitable mootness" has frequently been applied to bar appeals of bankruptcy court orders under circumstances where reversal or modification of an order could jeopardize, for example, the implementation of a negotiated chapter 11 plan or related agreements and upset the expectations of third parties who have relied on the order.

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To promote the finality and binding effect of confirmed chapter 11 plans, the Bankruptcy Code categorically prohibits any modification of a confirmed plan after it has been "substantially consummated." Stakeholders, however, sometimes attempt to skirt this prohibition by characterizing proposed changes to a substantially consummated chapter 11 plan as some other form of relief, such as modification of the confirmation order or a plan document, or reconsideration of the allowed amount of a claim. The U.S.

In In re Squirrels Rsch. Labs, LLC, No. 21-61491, 2022 WL 1310173, at *1 (Bankr. N.D. Ohio Apr. 29, 2022), the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Ohio recently addressed whether post-sale of the debtors’ assets, a creditor could conduct discovery to investigate the extent of a secured creditor’s liens in order to amend the distribution of the sale proceeds. Under the facts of this case, the bankruptcy court denied the creditor’s request.

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One year ago, we wrote that, unlike in 2019, when the large business bankruptcy landscape was generally shaped by economic, market, and leverage factors, the COVID-19 pandemic dominated the narrative in 2020. The pandemic may not have been responsible for every reversal of corporate fortune in 2020, but it weighed heavily on the scale, particularly for companies in the energy, retail, restaurant, entertainment, health care, travel, and hospitality industries.

In 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit made headlines when it ruled that creditors' state law fraudulent transfer claims arising from the 2007 leveraged buyout ("LBO") of Tribune Co. ("Tribune") were preempted by the safe harbor for certain securities, commodity, or forward contract payments set forth in section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code. In that ruling, In re Tribune Co. Fraudulent Conveyance Litig., 946 F.3d 66 (2d Cir. 2019), cert. denied, 209 L. Ed. 2d 568 (U.S. Apr.

Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 3002.1 was implemented to protect debtors from unanticipated deficiencies in residential mortgage payments following a chapter 13 discharge, and the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Puerto Rico’s recent opinion in In re Feliciano Figueroa[1] illustrates how detrimental the rule can be to inattentive mortgage holders.

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In the case of In re Ricky L. Moore (19-01228), the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Iowa taught an important lesson in the context of Chapter 12 bankruptcy cases[1]: do not rely on repeated assurances of payment from a friendly debtor in lieu of filing your bankruptcy proof of claim.

The Bankruptcy Protector

“It’s expensive to be me / Looking this good don’t come for free.” —Erika Jayne, “XXpen$ive”

Real Housewives of Beverly Hills cast member Erika Girardi, more commonly known as Erika Jayne, is the latest example of just how powerful (and expensive) an involuntary bankruptcy proceeding can be.