Two recent Supreme Court of Canada decisions demonstrate that the corporate attribution doctrine is not a one-size-fits-all approach.

The Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Harrington v. Purdue Pharma L.P. – holding that the Bankruptcy Code does not authorize the release of third-party claims against non-debtors in a reorganization plan without the consent of the affected claimants – will have a lasting impact on mass tort bankruptcy cases and likely nullifies one of the primary benefits of the so-called “Texas Two-Step” strategy: obtaining third-party releases of the debtor entity’s non-debtor affiliates.

Court approval of a sale process in receivership or Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (“BIA”) proposal proceedings is generally a procedural order and objectors do not have an appeal as of right; they must seek leave and meet a high test in order obtain it. However, in Peakhill Capital Inc. v.

In a recent decision, the Second Circuit held that only parties with the right to pursue a breach of contract claim under an executory contract or unexpired lease have the right to demand a cure payment in the event the executory contract or lease is assumed by a debtor in bankruptcy, affirming previous decisions by the bankruptcy and district courts, and limiting the scope of Bankruptcy Code § 365(b)(1)(A).

In bankruptcy as in federal jurisprudence generally, to characterize something with the near-epithet of “federal common law” virtually dooms it to rejection.

In January 2020 we reported that, after the reconsideration suggested by two Supreme Court justices and revisions to account for the Supreme Court’s Merit Management decision,[1] the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit stood by its origina

It seems to be a common misunderstanding, even among lawyers who are not bankruptcy lawyers, that litigation in federal bankruptcy court consists largely or even exclusively of disputes about the avoidance of transactions as preferential or fraudulent, the allowance of claims and the confirmation of plans of reorganization. However, with a jurisdictional reach that encompasses “all civil proceedings . . .

I don’t know if Congress foresaw, when it enacted new Subchapter V of Chapter 11 of the Code[1] in the Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019 (“SBRA”), that debtors in pending cases would seek to convert or redesignate their cases as Subchapter V cases when SBRA became effective on February 19, 2020, but it was foreseeable.

Our February 26 post [1] reported on the first case dealing with the question whether a debtor in a pending Chapter 11 case may redesignate it as a case under Subchapter V, [2] the new subchapter of Chapter 11 adopted by the Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019 (“SBRA”), which became effective on February 19.

Our February 26 post entitled “SBRA Springs to Life”^[1] reported on the first case known to me that dealt with the issue whether a debtor in a pending Chapter 11 case should be permitted to amend its petition to designate it as a case under Subchapter V,^[2] the new subchapter of Chapter 11 adopted by