Over the past several years, unitranche facilities have become increasingly prevalent. This growth has been driven by the ever-growing class of private credit and direct lenders who initially developed the unitranche facility structure, along with traditional bank lenders now joining this market. The unitranche structure has several advantages, including typically quicker execution for the parties involved and in some cases a lower cost of capital to the borrower.

On June 6, 2023, the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas (the “Court”) confirmed Serta Simmons Bedding, LLC’s (“Serta”) Chapter 11 plan and held that Serta’s 2020 uptiering transaction (the “Uptiering Transaction”) did not breach Serta’s 2016 first lien credit agreement (the “Credit Agreement”).

Both the First Energy Solutions and PG&E bankruptcies have seen proceedings regarding power purchase and similar agreements (PPAs) that raise this question.

Background

Contracts often contain provisions that enable a party to terminate or modify the contract based on the other party's bankruptcy filing, insolvency or deteriorating financial condition. In general, the Bankruptcy Code renders these types of provisions (sometimes referred to as "ipso facto" clauses) ineffective. Specifically, under section 365(e)(1) of the Bankruptcy Code (emphasis added):

On February 17, 2016, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) (collectively, the “agencies”) jointly proposed a rule to supplement the statutory provisions of Title II of the Dodd-Frank Act (the “Orderly Liquidation Authority” or “OLA”) that govern the orderly liquidation of a “covered broker or dealer”—i.e., an SEC-registered broker or dealer that is a member of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (“SIPC”) and for which a systemic risk determination to trigger the application of the OLA has been made.