The Northern District of Illinois recently held that a collection letter sent to a consumer’s attorney seeking payment on a debt discharged in bankruptcy did not violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act based on the “competent lawyer” standard. The case is Grajny v. Credit Control, LLC, No. 18-C-2719, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 173682, 2018 WL 4905019 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 9, 2018).

As summarized in the March 2018 issue of the American Bankruptcy Institute Journal, ABI’s Consumer Bankruptcy Committee has recently issued several recommendations and made several observations regarding the treatment of student loans under the Bankruptcy Code, codified in Title 11 of the United States Code.

On January 17, 2017, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued its long-anticipated opinion in Marblegate Asset Management, LLC v. Education Management Finance Corp., 1 ruling that Section 316(b) of the Trust Indenture Act of 1939, 15 U.S.C. § 77ppp(b) (the “Act”), prohibits only non-consensual amendments to core payment terms of bond indentures.