“In chapter 11, a creditor should be able to assert the full amount of any guarantee claim against the debtor without reducing the claim for recoveries against another obligor.”

“Whether the Nortel Senior Notes will be entitled to post-petition interest, and at what rate, in the chapter 11 cases are open questions that may hinge, among other things, on proving solvency of the Nortel chapter 11 debtors.”

On December 12, 2011, the Supreme Court granted a petition for certiorari in a case raising the question of whether a debtor's chapter 11 plan is confirmable when it proposes an auction sale of a secured creditor's assets free and clear of liens without permitting that creditor to "credit bid" its claims but instead provides the creditor with the "indubitable equivalent" of its secured claim. RadLAX Gateway Hotel, LLC v. Amalgamated Bank, No. 11-166 (cert. granted Dec. 12, 2011).

This Client Alert addresses the impact on a customer of a futures commission merchant (FCM) with respect to his or her accounts held by that FCM prior to a filing for bankruptcy under Title 11 of the United States Code, 11 U.S.C. §§ 101-1532 (the Bankruptcy Code) by the FCM.

Summary

Earlier this year, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit decided in In re Lett that objections to a bankruptcy court’s approval of a cram-down chapter 11 plan on the basis of noncompliance with the “absolute priority rule” may be raised for the first time on appeal. The Eleventh Circuit ruled that “[a] bankruptcy court has an independent obligation to ensure that a proposed plan complies with [the] absolute priority rule before ‘cramming’ that plan down upon dissenting creditor classes,” whether or not stakeholders “formally” object on that basis.

On February 7, 2011 the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued its eagerly awaited opinion in the consolidated appealIn re: DBSD North America, Inc., Docket Nos. 10-1175, 10-1201, 10-1352, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 27007.