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.
Just one year after Lyondell Chemical Company (Lyondell) and Basell AF (Basell) consummated a nearly $20 billion merger of their businesses, the merged business of LyondellBasell Industries (LBI) “failed in a colossal manner.”1 As part of the bankruptcy process that followed, a court-appointed litigation trust (the Trust) filed suit for the benefit of unsecured creditors against numerous parties involved in the merger, bringing actual a
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.
The immediate effect of Jevic will be that practitioners may no longer structure dismissals in any manner that deviates from the priority scheme of the Bankruptcy Code without the consent of impaired creditors.
By now, both indenture trustees and offices of the U.S. Trustee around the country are undoubtedly familiar with the Southern District of New York’s 2014 opinion in the case of In re Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc., 508 B.R. 283 (S.D.N.Y. 2014) (Lehman II), finding that individual committee members must establish a “substantial contribution” to the case under Section 503 of the Bankruptcy Code before the payment of their fees will be approved as part of a Chapter 11 plan. In the years since the Lehman II decision, however, U.S.
As many investors anticipated, the deep trough in the commodities market over recent years resulted in a number of companies in commodity industries restructuring their balance sheets through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy process. Because companies often reorganize in the midst of a market downturn, a commodity company’s low EBITDA during this time usually results in low values being placed on the company’s reorganized equity.
In today's low interest rate environment, the difference between a contractual interest rate and the federal judgment rate can be quite significant. It is not surprising, therefore, that this issue has become hotly litigated in cases involving solvent Chapter 11 debtors. Recently, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, in Colfin Bulls Funding A v. Paloian (In re Dvorkin Holdings), 547 B.R. 880 (N.D. Ill.
Puerto Rico is in the midst of a financial crisis. Over the past few years, its public debt skyrocketed while its government revenue sharply declined. In order to address its economic problems and to avoid mass public-worker layoffs and cuts in public services, the unincorporated U.S. territory issued billions of dollars in face value of municipal bonds. These bonds were readily saleable to investors in the United States due to their tax-exempt status and comparatively high yields.
On May 16, 2016, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down its opinion in Husky International Electronics, Inc. v. Ritz, Case No. 15-145.
Adding to the unsettled body of case law on the enforceability of prepetition waivers of the automatic stay, on April 27, 2016, the U.S.