They say every man needs protection, they say that every man must fall.¹

On November 6, 2023, WeWork Inc. and several hundred of its affiliates filed voluntary chapter 11 cases in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey. According to a press release issued simultaneously with the filings, WeWork also intends to file recognition proceedings in Canada under Part IV of the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act. The press release also states that WeWork’s locations outside of the United States and Canada are not part of the reorganization process.

What’s an ABC? If you ask ChatGPT, “ABC” is an acronym that can have multiple meanings, depending on the context—for example, referring to the alphabet. But here we are talking about a type of business liquidation process in the United States known as an Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors (“ABC”). An ABC is governed by state law and has long been viewed as an alternative to a liquidation under Chapter 7 of the US Bankruptcy Code.

In a recent opinion arising from the Chapter 11 proceedings of Arcapita Bank, Judge Alvin Hellerstein of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York affirmed a bankruptcy court decision denying safe-harbor protection to Shari’a-compliant Murabaha investment agreements.¹ Specifically, the district court held that the Murabaha agreemen

In a recent decision, Judge David Novak of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia vacated the Chapter 11 plan confirmation order entered by the bankruptcy court in the Mahwah Bergen Retail Group (formerly known as Ascena Retail Group) case, holding that the plan’s non-consensual third-party releases were unenforceable.¹ The ruling arrived shortly after an

In a December 16, 2021, decision,¹ Judge Colleen McMahon of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York reversed the bankruptcy court order confirming the Chapter 11 plan of Purdue Pharma, L.P.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit recently ruled in a case involving a Chapter 13 debtors’ attempt to shield contributions to a 401(k) retirement account from “projected disposable income,” therefore making such amounts inaccessible to the debtors’ creditors.^[1] For the reasons explained below, the Sixth Circuit rejected the debtors’ arguments.

Case Background

A statute must be interpreted and enforced as written, regardless, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, “of whether a court likes the results of that application in a particular case.” That legal maxim guided the Sixth Circuit’s reasoning in a recent decision^[1] in a case involving a Chapter 13 debtor’s repeated filings and requests for dismissal of his bankruptcy cases in order to avoid foreclosure of his home.

On January 14, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court decided City of Chicago, Illinois v. Fulton (Case No. 19-357, Jan. 14, 2021), a case which examined whether merely retaining estate property after a bankruptcy filing violates the automatic stay provided for by §362(a) of the Bankruptcy Code. The Court overruled the bankruptcy court and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in deciding that mere retention of property does not violate the automatic stay.

Case Background

When an individual files a Chapter 7 bankruptcy case, the debtor’s non-exempt assets become property of the estate that is used to pay creditors. “Property of the estate” is a defined term under the Bankruptcy Code, so a disputed question in many cases is: What assets are, in fact, available to creditors?