The Bankruptcy Protector
On August 18, 2022, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Indiana, in In re BWGS, LLC, No. 19-01487-JMC-7A, 2022 WL 3568045 (Bankr. S.D. Ind. Aug. 18, 2022), narrowly interpreted the safe harbor provision in section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code by refusing to dismiss a lawsuit against a guarantor whose liability was eliminated by the debtor’s payment to the bank that held the guarantee.
Overview on Section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit recently ruled in the Puerto Rico bankruptcy case that Fifth Amendment takings claims cannot be discharged or impaired by a bankruptcy plan. As a matter of first impression in that circuit, the Court disagreed with the Ninth Circuit and held that former property owners affected by prepetition takings must be paid in full.
In re Fin. Oversight & Mgmt. Bd., 41 F.4th 29 (1st Cir. 2022)
In a recent decision, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that an agreement between a debtor, a surety, and third-party beneficiaries was not an executory contract and, thus, was ineligible to pass-through the bankruptcy unaffected. The Fifth Circuit, however, adopted a modified Countryman test for muti-party executory contracts. Matter of Falcon V, L.L.C., 2022 WL 3274174 (5th Cir. 2022).
Background
The Bankruptcy Protector
On June 6, 2022, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling in Siegel v. Fitzgerald, 142 S. Ct. 1770 (U.S. June 6, 2022) that the increase in fees payable to the U.S. Trustee system in 2018 violated the uniformity aspect of the Bankruptcy Clause of the Constitution because it was not immediately applicable in the two states with Bankruptcy Administrators rather than U.S. Trustees.
Overview
The Bankruptcy Protector
The Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey denied motions to dismiss the chapter 11 case of the newly created subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, LTL Management LLC, and granted the debtor’s motion to stay prosecution of actions asserting talc related personal injuries against its J&J affiliates and the products distributors. This is the first opinion outside the North Carolina bankruptcy court approving the use of the so-called Texas Two Step as a bankruptcy execution strategy.
The Motions to Dismiss
The Bankruptcy Protector
Key Takeaways