Introduction & Key Takeaways

The year 2024 ended with some major legal fireworks, as two important courts issued contrasting New Year’s Eve decisions on the validity of “uptier” liability management transactions that have played a large role in corporate debt restructurings for the past several years.

On September 10, 2024, the U.S.

On November 3, 2023, the Court in the Chapter 9 bankruptcy case of the City of Chester, Pennsylvania issued its ruling in an adversary proceeding challenging the perfection of the liens securing certain revenue bonds issued by the City.¹ Confirming the municipal bond market’s longstanding understanding, the Court concluded that the liens on revenues were prope

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.

In a ruling issued just yesterday, MOAC Mall Holdings LLC v. Transform Holdco LLC et al., 598 U.S. ----, 2023 WL 2992693 (2023) (“MOAC”), the United States Supreme Court (the “Supreme Court”) held that Bankruptcy Code section 363(m) is not jurisdictional in terms of appellate review of asset sale orders, but rather, that such section only contains limitations on the relief that may be afforded on appeal. Section 363(m) of the Bankruptcy Code is often relied upon by purchasers of assets in a bankruptcy case as providing finality to any sale order.

On March 14, 2023, Judge Ashely M. Chan of the U.S.

Executive Summary:

The U.S. Bankruptcy Code’s safe harbor provisions provide comfort to financial institutions that transfers made under protected financial contracts will generally not be subject to avoidance or “clawback” if the transferor subsequently files for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 7 or Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

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.

On March 15, 2022, the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico announced that the Plan of Adjustment for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico became effecfive, more than four years aher Puerto Rico commenced restructuring proceedings under Title III of the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act (“PROMESA”). PROMESA is a bespoke piece of federal legislafion enacted in 2016 to address Puerto Rico’s debt crisis, and incorporates most of chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy Code.