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

为创新经济发展模式、扩大对外开放力度，国家设立大湾区并着力将其打造为充满活力的世界级城市群和内地与港澳深度合作示范区。从定位不难看出，实行充分的市场经济和法治经济，为全国经济发展提供新的引擎和全新的模式，无疑是粤港澳大湾区的重要使命。要完成这一神圣使命，离不开破产重整制度。通过破产重整，挽救那些一时陷入财务困境和经营困境的企业，从而为湾区经济健康发展保驾护航。SX公司通过破产重整涅槃重生，就是破产重整制度保驾护航的典型案例。

一、企业初探：破产重整的机遇与挑战

1、SX公司基本情况

SX公司成立于1981年，于1994年在深交所上市，总股本约35000万股，其中流通股18000万股，限售流通股17000万股。

SX公司控股或参股四家实业公司，分别为科技公司、实业公司、饲料公司和西部公司。

2、SX公司重整受理情况

因不能清偿到期债务，经债权人饲料公司申请，深圳市中级人民法院（下称深圳中院）于2009年11月10日裁定SX公司进入重整程序，并指定北京市金杜（深圳）律师事务所担任管理人。

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.