Election of Joe Graham to Partner

Joe Graham was elected partner in the New York office. This year, Joe played a leading role in the chapter 11 cases of Avaya, Benefytt and Diamond Sports. He regularly advises on out-of-court restructurings, bankruptcy litigation and distressed investments. Joe earned his J.D., magna cum laude, and his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame.

Kelley Cornish Inducted into “M&A Advisor Hall of Fame”

Bankruptcy trustees and chapter 11 debtors-in-possession ("DIPs") frequently seek to avoid fraudulent transfers and obligations under section 544(b) of the Bankruptcy Code and state fraudulent transfer or other applicable nonbankruptcy laws because the statutory "look-back" period for avoidance under many nonbankruptcy laws exceeds the two-year period governing avoidance actions under section 548.

Exculpation clauses limiting the liability of certain entities for actions taken in connection with a bankruptcy case are a common feature of chapter 11 plans. However, courts disagree over the permitted scope of such clauses. They also disagree as to whether an order confirming a chapter 11 plan that includes exculpation and third-party release provisions is insulated from appellate review under the doctrine of "equitable mootness."

A handful of recent high-profile court rulings have considered whether a chapter 11 debtor is obligated to pay postpetition, pre-effective date interest ("pendency interest") to unsecured creditors to render their claims "unimpaired" under a chapter 11 plan in accordance with the pre-Bankruptcy Code common law "solvent-debtor" exception requiring a solvent debtor to pay pendency interest to unsecured creditors. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit weighed in on this question in In re LATAM Airlines Grp. S.A., 55 F.4th 377 (2d Cir. 2022).

On December 5, 2022, in In re Global Cord Blood Corp., 2022 WL 17478530 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. Dec. 5, 2022) (“Global Cord”), the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (the “Court”) denied recognition of a proceeding pending in the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands (the “Cayman Proceeding” and the court, the “Cayman Court”) because it was more like a corporate governance and fraud remediation effort than a collective proceeding for the purpose of dealing with reorganization or liquidation, as Chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code requires.

Whether a contract is "executory" such that it can be assumed, rejected, or assigned in bankruptcy is a question infrequently addressed by the circuit courts of appeals. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit provided some rare appellate court-level guidance on the question in Matter of Falcon V, L.L.C., 44 F.4th 348 (5th Cir. 2022). The Fifth Circuit affirmed lower-court rulings determining that a surety contract was not executory because the surety had already posted irrevocable surety bonds and did not owe further performance to the debtors.

The thing that strikes you the most about Paul, Weiss is the depth of the practice. They just have a large number of senior partners, all of whom are of an outstanding quality.

- Chambers USA, Band 1 for Bankruptcy/Restructuring (Nationwide and NYC) and "Bankruptcy Law Firm of the Year" in 2019

Paul, Weiss Helps NYC Taxi Drivers Restructure Debt to Keep Their Medallion

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that in a solvent debtor case, unsecured creditors have an equitable right to postpetition interest at the applicable contractual or state law rate in order to be deemed unimpaired.