The Supreme Court has not handled its recent major bankruptcy decisions well. The jurisdictional confusion engendered by its 2011 decision in Stern v.
Four years ago, in Stern v. Marshall, the Supreme Court stunned many observers by re-visiting separation of powers issues regarding the jurisdiction of the United States bankruptcy courts that most legal scholars had viewed as long settled. Stern significantly reduced the authority of bankruptcy courts, and bankruptcy judges and practitioners both have since been grappling with the ramifications of that decision.
Judge Robert Gerber ruled last week that General Motors LLC (“New GM”), the entity formed in 2009 to acquire the assets of General Motors Corporation (“Old GM”), is shielded from a substantial portion of the lawsuits based on ignition switch defects in cars manufactured prior to New GM’s acquisition of the assets of Old GM in 2009.
Judge Christopher Sontchi issued a notable opinion last week in the bankruptcy case of Energy Future Holdings Corp., et al. (“EFH”), Case No. 14-10979 (D. Del.), ruling that the repayment in full of certain senior secured notes did not trigger an obligation by the debtors to pay a make-whole premium.
Judge Robert Gerber will be stepping down at the end of this year, ending a storied judicial career highlighted by his oversight of the 2009 chapter 11 case of General Motors Corporation (“Old GM”).
There were nearly a million bankruptcy cases filed by individuals and businesses in 2014. It is safe to say that only the tiniest fraction of such debtors have any familiarity with the Supreme Court’s decision in Stern v.
Energy Future Holdings (EFH), f/k/a TXU Corp., an energy company centered in Texas, was taken private in 2007 in the largest leveraged buyout transaction that has ever taken place. The deal was largely predicated on an anticipated rise in natural gas prices; when prices instead plummeted the company, which had borrowed nearly $40 billion, was left with a massively unbalanced capital structure. The chapter 11 cases of EFH and its subsid
One month ago, Judge Christopher Klein ruled in the city of Stockton, CA bankruptcy case that public employee pension obligations can be impaired in municipal bankruptcy cases under Chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy Code. Last week, however, Judge Klein approved the plan of adjustment for Stockton that left public pension obligations intact over the vociferous objection of Franklin Investments, a major city bondholder whose claim was substantially reduced. The confirmation of the Stockton plan underscores that even as there now appears to be a sound legal foundatio
The perception that public employee pension obligations cannot be impaired in bankruptcy suffered a damaging blow several months ago in the City of Detroit bankruptcy case, and has now been fatally wounded by
General Motors LLC (“New GM”) came into being in the summer of 2009, when it acquired substantially all of the assets of General Motors Corporation (“Old GM”) in a sale undertaken pursuant to section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code. The July 2009 Sale Order approved by U.S.