Two years ago in Stern v Marshall, the Supreme Court surprised many observers by placing constitutional limits on the jurisdiction of the United States Bankruptcy Courts. The Court, in limiting the ability of a bankruptcy court judge to render a final judgment on a counterclaim against a party who had filed a claim against a debtor’s bankruptcy estate, re-opened separation of powers issues that most bankruptcy practitioners had thought settled since the mid-1980s. While the

Everyone gathered last week at the meeting convened by Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr knew that the news would be dire. Nonetheless, Orr’s report on Detroit’s financial condition and his proposal for the treatment of the city’s creditors – an offer of approximately ten cents on the dollar for the city’s unsecured bonds - still managed to drop jaws. Therein lies

Kevyn Orr, the emergency manager appointed by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder to try to resolve the Detroit financial crisis, has effectively replaced the Detroit mayor,

GGW LLC and its affiliates (“GGW”), which produce and distribute the soft core pornography videos known as “Girls Gone Wild”, recently filed for relief under chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. The filing follows years of legal troubles for the company’s founder, Joe Francis, including criminal charges of racketeering and tax evasion, and

Nearly nine months after it filed for protection under Chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy Code, a federal bankruptcy judge last week determined that the city of Stockton, California has satisfied the requirements of Section 109(c) of the Bankruptcy Code a

Distressed m&a is the “new normal” in Chapter 11 cases, as noted here and elsewhere. Two large media marketing and advertising companies, Super

The School Specialty chapter 11 case began in what has become all too typical fashion. The company, overleveraged and short of cash, had no choice but to accept a lifeline extended by its second lien secured lender, a private investment fund. The terms of the debtor in possession (“DIP”) financing

By nearly any measure, the Chapter 11 cases of Hawker Beechcraft and its affiliates (the “Debtors”) stand as a significant success. The cases began as a standalone reorganization predicated upon a restructuring support agreement (the “RSA”) among the Debtors’ senior lenders and noteholders, which soon thereafter gained the support of the

On January 17, 2013, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York decided that American Airlines (American) was not obligated to pay certain make-whole premiums set forth in some of its loan indentures at the time that American refinanced the applicable loans. A makewhole premium typically allows a lender to be compensated for having to reinvest in a lower interestrate environment when a borrower prepays its debt before the original maturity date.

Atari, Inc., the creator of the primordial video game “Pong”, filed for Chapter 11 yesterday in the U.S.