The Supreme Court rescinded a payment made to the creditor that petitioned for compulsory insolvency in a case where the creditor withdrew its petition and the debtor applied for voluntary bankruptcy several weeks later.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court made the following significant assertions in respect of insolvency rescission of payments:
Under Additional Provision Four of the Insolvency Act,1 which regulates the courts’ sanction of refinancing agreements, the effects of the moratorium established in the agreement will be extended to dissenting financial entities, provided that the conditions specified in that precept are fulfilled (where the requisites imposed under article 71.6 of the Insolvency Act regarding the agreement itself are met and where it has been signed by creditors representing at least 75% of the financial entities’ liabilities at the time of the agreement).
The U.S. Supreme Court in RadLAX Gateway Hotel, LLC v. Amalgamated Bank, ___ S. Ct. ___, 2012 WL 1912197 (May 29, 2012), held that a debtor may not confirm a chapter 11 "cramdown" plan that provides for the sale of collateral free and clear of existing liens, but does not permit a secured creditor to credit-bid at the sale. The unanimous ruling written by Justice Scalia (with Justice Kennedy recused) resolved a split among the Third, Fifth, and Seventh Circuits.
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).
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.