The Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) has held once again that the Insolvency Directive does not require member states to put measures in place to fully fund lost pension rights on the insolvency of an employer. This conclusion is contrary to some reporting in the pensions press earlier today.

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.

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.) 

Introduction:

The Government has launched a new consultation on a number of technical and regulatory changes affecting pensions legislation. One of the proposed changes is to amend the entry rules in relation to the Pension Protection Fund (PPF). The consultation follows on from the recent Supreme Court decision in Olympic Airlines and the introduction of specific legislation to ensure the beneficiaries of that particular scheme received protection in circumstances where the entry rules otherwise excluded them.

Have you ever had to press garlic for a recipe? Or put together a Swedish bookshelf, purchased from a Swedish superstore? Yes, you have – and you may have succeeded, so long as you had a garlic press, or the bag of special Swedish tools respectively. But what if you don’t? Yikes.