On October 14, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a long-awaited ruling on whether Ultra Petroleum Corp.

In Short

The Situation: Courts have disagreed over whether a make-whole premium triggered by a borrower's bankruptcy filing must be disallowed as unmatured interest. They have also disputed whether the "solvent-debtor exception" requiring the payment of postpetition interest to unimpaired unsecured creditors of a solvent debtor survived the enactment of the Bankruptcy Code. Finally, courts have split on what rate of postpetition interest unimpaired unsecured creditors of a solvent debtor are entitled to receive.

In Short

The Situation: Bankruptcy courts have split on what rate of post-petition interest unimpaired creditors of a solvent debtor are entitled to receive. Bankruptcy courts have variously ruled that such creditors were entitled to the contractual rate of interest, interest at the federal judgment rate (about the rate on a one-year Treasury bill) as of the bankruptcy petition date, or an equitable rate. Another possibility is that no interest is payable at all.

On Friday, the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, Division of Banking closed Ravenswood Bank, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, and appointed the FDIC as receiver for the bank.

Yesterday, the Special Inspector General for the Trouble Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) released a report criticizing the Treasury Department’s role in the accelerated closure of hundreds of GM and Chrysler dealerships.

On Tuesday, the Bank of Spain released details regarding the status of the restructuring of the Spanish savings bank sector, in what it called “the biggest overhaul of the Spanish banking sector in recent history.” The Bank also provided details regarding funding for bank restructurings supplied by the Fund for the Orderly Restructuring of the Banking Sector (FROB),

Yesterday, the U.K. Treasury announced that it had published a report setting out detailed proposals for the effective management and resolution of failed investment banks.

Today, the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law held a hearing to discuss the role of bankruptcy and antitrust law in financial regulatory reform, particularly with respect to institutions that may be regarded as “too big to fail,” as highlighted during the financial crisis.

Testifying before the Subcommittee were the following witnesses:

Panel I