In In re Woodbridge Grp. of Companies, LLC, No. BR 17-12560-BLS, 2019 WL 4305444 (D. Del. Sept. 11, 2019), the United States District Court for the District of Delaware affirmed an opinion by Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey, and held that a proof of claim will be expunged if the note and loan agreement underlying the claim prohibit assignment and provide that assignment without consent will be “null and void.”

Facts

The Bankruptcy Protector recently discussed notable non-bankruptcy provisions that must be consulted to ensure compliance with privacy issues. In this post, we discuss notable Bankruptcy Code provisions and Bankruptcy Rules on these issues.

Section 101(41) of the Bankruptcy Code—Personally Identifiable Information

Privacy issues implicate several Bankruptcy Code sections and Bankruptcy Rules. The debtor must also comply with non-bankruptcy rules concerning privacy to the extent that such rules are not inconsistent with the Bankruptcy Code. 28 U.S.C. § 959(b).

There is currently a split in authority on the issue of whether a trustee may recover from an immediate or mediate transferee if the recipient received proceeds from a fraudulent transfer but not the fraudulently transferred property itself.

This article first appeared in Law360.

Transfers and transactions up to ten years old may be scrutinized, unwound and recovered by a trustee, the bankruptcy court sitting in Massachusetts recently held in the NECCO (think chalky wafer candy) bankruptcy case. The ruling, in a case of first impression in Massachusetts, expands the reach back period from the typical four-year period for fraudulent transfer recovery, so long as the IRS is a creditor in the case.

Earlier this year, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York issued an opinion in BOKF NA v. Wilmington Sav. Fund Soc’y FSB (In re MPM Silicones LLC), Case No. 15-2280, 2019 WL 121003 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 4, 2019), which had significant ramifications for senior secured creditors. Much has been written about this decision, so a lengthy discussion will not be undertaken here.

In a significant opinion for oil and gas industry bankruptcies, the Fifth Circuit in In re Whistler Energy II, LLC., No. 18-30940, 2019 WL 3369099 (5th Cir. July 26, 2019), issued a ruling setting forth the circumstances regarding whether an offshore drilling contractor is entitled to an administrative claim after rejection of its drilling contract.

Facts

Back in December of 2017, the Bankruptcy Protector provided a succinct summary of all cases decided post-Jevic through November 17, 2017. In this update, we discuss the cases decided between November 17, 2017 and May 10, 2019.

The chart below includes the case name, date, and citation; a brief description of the nature of the case; and a brief description of how the Court applied the Jevic.

Tolstoy warned that “if you look for perfection, you’ll never be content”; but Tolstoy wasn’t a bankruptcy lawyer. In the world of secured lending, perfection is paramount. A secured lender that has not properly perfected its lien can lose its collateral and end up with unsecured status if its borrower files bankruptcy.