本文结合了笔者承办的2023年度“全国破产经典案例”哈尔滨工大高新技术产业开发股份有限公司等五家公司破产重整案和近年来约50家退市公司重整的理论分析和实践经验，探讨退市公司独有的重整价值、重整路径及实务中的常见争议疑难问题，现采撷文章要点，抛砖引玉供各界同仁研究探讨。

一、引言

2024年4月，国务院出台《关于加强监管防范风险推动资本市场高质量发展的若干意见》，中国证券监督管理委员会出台《关于严格执行退市制度的意见》，证券交易所修订《上海证券交易所股票上市规则》《深圳证券交易所股票上市规则》等业务规则（以下合称“国九条及相关配套文件”）。“国九条及相关配套文件”旨在加强对市场的监管，倡导退市常态化。在2019年以前，每年退市数量几乎都在个位数；自2019年开始，上市公司退市逐渐进入加速状态，2020年退市数量达到20家，2021年退市数量达到23家，2022年退市数量达到50家，2023年退市数量达到46家，2024年度截至9月6日已经退市49家企业。上市公司退市后的出路作为整体性退市制度设计的一环，退市公司破产重整逐渐引发学界和市场的关注。

The Bankruptcy Code confers upon debtors or trustees, as the case may be, the power to avoid certain preferential or fraudulent transfers made to creditors within prescribed guidelines and limitations. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Mexico recently addressed the contours of these powers through a recent decision inU.S. Glove v. Jacobs, Adv. No. 21-1009, (Bankr. D.N.M.

In In re Smith, (B.A.P. 10th Cir., Aug. 18, 2020), the U.S. Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit recently joined the majority of circuit courts of appeals in finding that a creditor seeking a judgment of nondischargeability must demonstrate that the injury caused by the prepetition debtor was both willful and malicious under Section 523(a)(6) of the Bankruptcy Code.

Factual Background

In a recent decision, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York held that claim disallowance issues under Section 502(d) of the Bankruptcy Code "travel with" the claim, and not with the claimant. Declining to follow a published district court decision from the same federal district, the bankruptcy court found that section 502(d) applies to disallow a transferred claim regardless of whether the transferee acquired its claim through an assignment or an outright sale. See In re Firestar Diamond, 615 B.R. 161 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 2020).

InIn re Juarez, 603 B.R. 610 (9th Cir. BAP 2019), the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit addressed a question of first impression in the circuit with respect to property that is exempt from creditor reach: it adopted the view that, under the "new value exception" to the "absolute priority rule," an individual Chapter 11 debtor intending to retain such property need not make a "new value" contribution covering the value of the exemption.

Background

In In re Palladino, 942 F.3d 55 (1st Cir. 2019), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit addressed whether a debtor receives “reasonably equivalent value” in exchange for paying his adult child’s college tuition. The Palladino court answered this question in the negative, thereby contributing to the growing circuit split regarding the avoidability of debtors’ college tuition payments for their adult children as constructively fraudulent transfers.

Background

In a matter of first impression, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of New York recently analyzed whether a debtor may exempt from her bankruptcy estate a retirement account that was bequeathed to her upon the death of her parent. In In re Todd, 585 B.R. 297 (Bankr. N.D.N.Y 2018), the court addressed an objection to a debtor’s claim of exemption in an inherited retirement account, and held that the property was not exempt under New York and federal law.

In Kaye v. Blue Bell Creameries (In re BFW Liquidation), 899 F.3d 1178 (11th Cir. 2018), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit found that a liability for an allegedly preferential transfer may be reduced by the amount of new value given, regardless of whether that new value has already been repaid by the debtor before its bankruptcy filing.

On June 4, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion in Lamar Archer & Cofrin LLP v. Appling,[1] resolving a circuit split on the issue of whether a debtor’s statement about a single asset constitutes “a statement respecting the debtor’s financial condition” for the purposes of 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(2).

Alerts and Updates

The Supreme Court’s opinion is significant because it will encourage creditors to rely on written, rather than oral, statements of debtors as to both their assets and overall financial status, which are better evidence in a nondischargeability case.