Recent Development

In scope of the various response measures implemented by the Turkish government to prevent the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) in Turkey, the President of the Turkish Republic issued the "Decree to Suspend Enforcement and Bankruptcy Proceedings" on March 22, 2020, in accordance with Article 330, "Suspension In Case of Emergency", of the Enforcement and Bankruptcy Law ("EBL").

What Does the Decision Say?

Recent Development

The Turkish Parliament enacted a law amending the composition (tr. "konkordato," a Turkish scheme of arrangement) articles in the Code of Enforcement and Bankruptcy in response to widespread abuse of the composition proceedings. The changes are effective as of the date of promulgation on the Official Gazette, 19 December 2018, with pending applications remaining subject to the previous version of the provisions.

The Amendments

The major amendments are summarized below.

Yeni Gelişme  

Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi, konkordato sürecinin suiistimal edildiğine ilişkin gelen tepkileri göz önünde bulundurarak, İcra ve İflas Kanunu'ndaki konkordato hükümlerinde değişiklikler öngören kanun teklifini yasalaştırmıştır. Değişiklikler 19 Aralık 2018 tarihinde Resmi Gazete’de yayımlanarak yürürlüğe girmiştir. Ancak görülmekte olan konkordato talepleri hakkında önceki hükümler uygulanmaya devam edecektir.

Kabul Edilen Değişiklikler  

Önemli değişiklikler aşağıda özetlenmiştir.

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.

In a recent decision out of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Virginia, a court analyzed the effect of a setoff effectuated between two governmental units in the 90 days prior to the filing of a husband and wife’s bankruptcy case. In Hurt v. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (In re Hurt), 579 B.R. 765 (Bankr. W.D. Va. 2017), the court addressed competing motions for summary judgment filed by the debtors, on the one hand, and the U.S.

Recent Development

The Law on the Amendments to the Code of Enforcement and Bankruptcy and Certain Laws ("Law No. 7101") was published on the Official Gazette on March 15, 2018.

Background

As a result of the studies conducted by the Coordination Council for the Improvement of the Investment Environment, the Law No. 7101 was introduced to the Turkish Parliament.

In Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding, 580 U.S. __(2017), decided on March 22, the U.S. Supreme Court held that, without the consent of impaired creditors, a bankruptcy court cannot approve a "structured dismissal" that provides for distributions deviating from the ordinary priority scheme of the Bankruptcy Code. The ruling reverses the decisions of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, and the U.S.