On February 16, 2018, the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas issued an opinion that may prove important for non-defaulting parties to trading contracts. In an appeal arising out of the Linn Energy bankruptcy, the district court held that a party seeking to terminate a safe-harbor contract pursuant to section 556 of the Bankruptcy Code is not restricted by any time limitation, and therefore does not waive its safe-harbor rights if it fails to terminate the contract within a certain amount of time.

The initial year of the Trump administration colored much of the political, business, and financial headlines of 2017, both in the U.S. and abroad. Key administration-related developments in 2017 included U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord; decertification of the Iranian nuclear deal; steps to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement; the continued investigation of Russian election interference; the showdown with North Korea over nuclear weapons; U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel; and the largest U.S.

In Varela v. AE Liquidation, Inc. (In re AE Liquidation, Inc.), 866 F.3d 515 (3d Cir. 2017), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit became the sixth circuit court of appeals to rule that a "probability standard" applies in determining whether an employer is relieved from giving 60 days’ advance notice to employees of a mass layoff under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 (the "WARN Act").

The ability of a trustee or chapter 11 debtor-in-possession ("DIP") to sell bankruptcy estate assets "free and clear" of competing interests in the property has long been recognized as one of the most important advantages of a bankruptcy filing as a vehicle for restructuring a debtor’s balance sheet and generating value. Still, section 363(f) of the Bankruptcy Code, which delineates the circumstances under which an asset can be sold free and clear of "any interest in such property," has generated a fair amount of controversy.

The ability to avoid fraudulent or preferential transfers is a fundamental part of U.S. bankruptcy law. However, when a transfer by a U.S. entity takes place outside the U.S. to a non-U.S. transferee—as is increasingly common in the global economy—courts disagree as to whether the Bankruptcy Code’s avoidance provisions apply extraterritorially to avoid the transfer and recover the transferred assets. A pair of bankruptcy court rulings handed down in 2017 widened a rift among the courts on this issue.

The 2005 amendments to the Bankruptcy Code included the addition of an administrative expense claim for the value of goods received by the debtor in the 20 days prior to the bankruptcy filing. The allowance of an administrative expense priority—which generally garners payment in full—for a prepetition claim was a break from tradition and a significant boon to suppliers of goods. For that same reason, however, debtors have had an incentive to fight against the magnitude of such claims in any way possible.

The ability to avoid fraudulent or preferential transfers is a fundamental part of U.S. bankruptcy law. However, when a transfer by a U.S. entity takes place outside the U.S. to a non-U.S. transferee—as is increasingly common in the global economy—courts disagree as to whether the Bankruptcy Code’s avoidance provisions can apply extraterritorially to avoid the transfer and recover the transferred assets. A ruling recently handed down by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York widens a rift among the courts on this issue. In Spizz v. Goldfarb Seligman & Co.

On March 10, 2017, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a Memorandum Order, in which it affirmed a controversial bankruptcy court ruling. The district court agreed with the bankruptcy court that Sabine Oil & Gas Corp., an upstream oil and gas producer, could reject a number of its gathering contracts with midstream energy companies.

With one exception, the Top 10 List of "public company" (defined as a company with publicly traded stock or debt) bankruptcies of 2016 consisted entirely of energy companies—solar, coal, and oil and gas producers—reflecting, as in 2015, the dire straits of those sectors caused by weakened worldwide demand and, until their December turnaround, plummeting oil prices. The exception came from the airline industry. Each company gracing the Top 10 List for 2016 entered bankruptcy with assets valued at more than $3 billion.

Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act