In the case of United States of America v. Edward P. Bond, No. 12-4803 (2d. Cir. August 13, 2014), the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (the "Second Circuit") issued a decision that could have far-reaching effects on how liquidating chapter 11 bankruptcy cases will be handled in the future.

In its bankruptcy filing under Japan's Civil Rehabilitation Law, Mt. Gox claims 6.5 billion yen, or around $64 million, in liabilities and 3.84 billion yen, or around $38 million, in assets.

Last week, the 8th Circuit B.A.P. affirmed, first noting that criminal judgments, including restitution awards and liens, are afforded special protection from bankruptcy discharge.

In Morning Mist Holdings Limited v. Krys (In re Fairfield Sentry Limited), Case No. 11-4376, 2013 WL 1593348 (2d Cir.

Until 2013, no circuit court of appeals had weighed in on the implications of the U.S. Supreme Court’s pronouncement in the 203 North LaSalle case that property retained by a junior stakeholder under a cram-down chapter 11 plan in exchange for new value “without benefit of market valuation” violates the “absolute priority rule.” See Bank of Amer. Nat’l Trust & Savings Ass’n v. 203 North LaSalle Street P’ship, 526 U.S. 434 (1999), reversing Matter of 203 North LaSalle Street P’ship, 126 F.3d 955 (7th Cir. 1997).

In a corporate system based in part on the separation of ownership and control, the relationship between principals and agents is riddled with agency problems: Among them are potential conflicts of interest where agents may abuse their fiduciary position for their own benefit as opposed to the benefit of the principals to whom they are obligated. Delineating the agents' fiduciary duties is thus a central focus of corporate law, and the dereliction of those duties often comes under scrutiny in the bankruptcy context.

2012 is shaping up as a year of bankruptcy first impressions for the Ninth Circuit. The court of appeals sailed into uncharted bankruptcy waters twice already this year in the same chapter 11 case. On January 24, the court ruled in In re Thorpe Insulation Co., 2012 WL 178998 (9th Cir. Jan. 24, 2012) ("Thorpe I"), that an appeal by certain nonsettling asbestos insurers of an order confirming a chapter 11 plan was not equitably moot because, among other things, the plan had not been "substantially consummated" under the court's novel construction of that statutory term.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in In re Philadelphia Newspapers LLC,1 has ruled that secured creditors do not have a right, as a matter of law, to credit bid their claims when their collateral is sold under a plan of reorganization. The Third Circuit held that secured creditors may be barred from credit bidding where a debtor's reorganization plan provides secured creditors with the "indubitable equivalent" of their secured interest in the assets. The court's ruling follows a similar ruling last year by the U.S.