Insurers with unwanted runoff blocks of business should consider the latest guidance from insurance regulators on potential transactional structures that could mitigate this issue.

When is an insurance commissioner not a governmental authority? A federal district judge reminds us that a state insurance commissioner, when acting as receiver of an insolvent insurer, acts in a different capacity to his governmental role. This principle can cause an insurance commissioner to fall outside a contractual definition of “governmental authority” even where the definition contains inclusive language on multiple capacities.

Insurers with portfolio assets that are distressed because of the COVID-19 pandemic will want to consider the extension of prior guidance from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) on restructuring such debt.

In Coosemans Miami v. Arthur (In re Arthur), the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida held last week that individuals in control of a PACA trust may still receive a bankruptcy discharge of debts arising from their breach of such PACA trust. A link to the opinion is here.

Happy 2018! We at The Bankruptcy Cave have been itching to write about the Cherry Growers Chapter 11 case - which really is ground-breaking - but the holidays, life, and yes, work for clients too, all just got in the way. But with each passing week, the case stayed on our minds. So now that time permits, here is the writeup - and see below for the remarkable significance of the case.

Our two-part article on non-con and true sale issues in insurance contexts continues with a deeper dive into the considerations that distinguish these issues from similar remoteness principles in a Bankruptcy Code context. In Part One, we explained some of the basics of state insurance law that bear on these issues and how these can give rise to different approaches in opinion-giving; in this Part Two, we identify some practical obstacles that arise in these kinds of contexts and opinions.

A Pennsylvania Hypothetical

This two-part article discusses the key concerns, from a non-consolidation and true sale perspective, that arise when an insurance company, as opposed to a bankruptcy-eligible entity, is a sponsor/seller in a securitization or similar structured finance transaction. This Part One introduces the main contrasts between non-con and true sale analysis in a traditional bankruptcy context and such analysis in an insurance-law scenario.

We at the Bankruptcy Cave are not very surprised by the ruling yesterday in Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corp. The Supreme Court in Jevic reviewed a Bankruptcy Court’s decision to approve a settlement (with a distribution of proceeds that contravened the Bankruptcy Code’s priority scheme) in conjunction with dismissing the bankruptcy case of the Chapter 11 debtor Jevic Holding Corp.

Most restructuring practitioners are aware, either vaguely or through punishing experience, of the power of PACA creditors. PACA (or the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act, 7 U.S.C. § 499a et seq. for those who hate brevity) requires that buyers of produce hold such produce – and their proceeds – in trust for the benefit of produce sellers.

Editor’s Note:  Here at The Bankruptcy Cave, we love insolvency stuff; we eat it for breakfast and dream about it at night.  (We are not kidding.)  Sometimes that includes credit-related litigation, and so we keep our pre-trial, trial, and appellate skills honed.  To that end, here is a very helpful cheat sheet we prepared and which we bring with us to every deposition, just in case.  (Your author Leah even got to enjoy a no-show deposition in Chicago last year; she created a perfect record using the below.)