As courts across the country deal with scaled back operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, bankruptcy courts in New Jersey and Delaware have issued novel orders to address the impact of the virus on certain debtors. Last month, debtors in the chapter 11 bankruptcy cases of Modell’s Sporting Goods, Inc. and CraftWorks Parent, LLC each sought and obtained court orders suspending certain case activity which, for all intents and purposes “mothballed” the cases for a certain period of time.

The question of does a lien exist without a debt for it to secure is a complicated issue that unfortunately does not have a universal answer. This post will use two recent cases to explore concerns that counsel should examine if presented with this question.

Prepayment premiums (also referred to as make-whole premiums) are a common feature in loan documents, allowing lenders to recover a lump-sum amount if a borrower pays off loan obligations prior to maturity, effectively compensating lenders for yield that they would have otherwise received absent prepayment. As a result of the widespread use of such provisions, three circuit courts of appeal – the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Second, Third and Fifth Circuit – have recently had to address the enforceability of prepayment provisions in bankruptcy.

Loan servicers’ employees are human beings. Loan servicing employees use systems designed by other human beings. We all know this and so should anticipate that there will be mistakes in loan servicing operations. Recently, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reminded us that how loan servicers plan for and react to inevitable mistakes is important. The case also has some good reminders for litigation counsel and planning tips for loan servicers.

In recent weeks, the dispute in Windstream’s bankruptcy between Windstream and its REIT spinoff Uniti Group over the lease transaction that ultimately led to Windstream’s chapter 11 bankruptcy has continued to escalate with Windstream filing an adversary complaint against Uniti. In its complaint, Windstream seeks to recharacterize the lease as a disguised financing alleging that the lease resulted in a long-term transfer of billions of dollars to Uniti to the detriment of Windstream’s creditors.

Lenders and their counsel know that it is important to properly describe the collateral on which a lien (mortgage or security interest) is being granted. The purpose of this post is to discuss some recent decisions contrary to what many corporate counsel thought they knew concerning collateral descriptions in security agreements and UCC financing statements.

On April 23, 2019, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, in fraudulent transfer litigation arising out of the 2007 leveraged buyout of the Tribune Company,1 ruled on one of the significant issues left unresolved by the US Supreme Court in its Merit Management decision last year.

Ohio and other states where Frost Brown Todd has offices have long had witness and/or notary requirements for the execution of mortgages. Ohio Revised Code Section 5301.01 provides that a “mortgage . . . shall be signed by the . . . mortgagor. . . . The signing shall be acknowledged by the . . . mortgagor . . . before a . . . notary public . . .

Intercreditor agreements--contracts that lay out the respective rights, obligations and priorities of different classes of creditors--play an increasingly important role in corporate finance in light of the continued prevalence of complex capital structures involving various levels of debt. When a company encounters financial difficulties, intercreditor agreements become all the more important, as competing classes of creditors seek to maximize their share of the company's limited assets.

Consider the common commercial loan collection situation: a business debt collateralized by relatively permanent collateral (real property or durable non-mobile equipment such as a printing press) and transient collateral (inventory, accounts receivable and cash).[1] Frequently, there is also potentially recoverable unsecured debt because the collateral is insufficient to pay the entire debt and (a) the collateral does not include all the borrower’s