On April 17, 2023, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, in Matter of RE Palm Springs II, L.L.C., 2023 WL 2966520 (5th Cir. April 17, 2023), held that a senior lender who uses economic leverage and asserts its legal rights to squeeze out a junior lender remains a good faith purchaser entitled to declare an appeal moot based on a sale under section 363(m) of the Bankruptcy Code. Key to the Fifth Circuit’s opinion was the fact that the actions in question were disclosed to the bankruptcy court in advance of it making the section 363(m) finding.
Facts
In a previous blog post from June 2022, we discussed the Tenth Circuit’s post-Sigel decision in John Q. Hammons Fall 2006 LLC v. U.S. Trustee (In re John Q. Hammons Fall 2006 LLC), 15 F.4th 1011 (10th Cir. Oct. 5, 2021), which held that the government must pay a refund to a Chapter 11 debtor based on what the debtor would have paid over the same time were the case in a Bankruptcy Administrator district.
Two recent decisions from circuit courts of appeal – the Fifth and Ninth – have addressed a question that does not arise often: in a solvent-debtor chapter 11 case, is the debtor required to pay post-petition interest (commonly referred to as “pendency interest”) to unsecured creditors in order to render such claims unimpaired? And, if so, what is the applicable rate of interest to use? Additionally, a subsequent decision from the Second Circuit, while not ultimately reaching the issue, favorably cited the recent Fifth and Ninth Circuit decisions.
In a recent decision by the Tenth Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel, the court held that a chapter 7 trustee could not sell an LLC membership interest pursuant to section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code because of a transfer restriction within the LLC operating agreement. Malloy v. Trak-1 Technology Inc.(In re Kramer), No. 21-005, 2022 WL 17176411 (B.A.P. 10th Cir. Nov. 23, 2022).
The recent decision in Re Astora Women’s Health LLC illustrates the importance of cross-border recognition of insolvency processes, highlighting the benefits of a joined-up global approach which recognises that modern business do not stop for international borders.
With Astora hot off the presses and the twenty-fifth anniversary of the UNCITRAL Model Law on the horizon the team at SPB have taken stock of the cross-border recognition framework from the perspective of the UK and the US.
Astora
The UK High Court has ruled that the obligations of third-party guarantors are not affected by a part 26A restructuring plan being sanctioned in respect of the underlying obligations. This approach mirrors the way guarantees are dealt with in a part 26 scheme of arrangement.
The case of Oceanfill Ltd. v Nuffield Health Wellbeing Ltd & Cannons Group Limited examined whether a restructuring plan under part 26A of the Companies Act 2006 (the “Act”) had the effect of releasing liability arising under a third-party guarantee.
The Supreme Court has refused permission for the case of Lock v Stanley to be appealed, meaning that the Court of Appeal’s approach to questions around the assignment by a liquidator of claims in the insolvent estate stands.
Most notably the Court of Appeal confirmed that a liquidator is under no duty to offer defendants the right to acquire the claims against them unless the failure to do so would be perverse.
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 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.