Election of Joe Graham to Partner
Joe Graham was elected partner in the New York office. This year, Joe played a leading role in the chapter 11 cases of Avaya, Benefytt and Diamond Sports. He regularly advises on out-of-court restructurings, bankruptcy litigation and distressed investments. Joe earned his J.D., magna cum laude, and his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame.
Kelley Cornish Inducted into “M&A Advisor Hall of Fame”
On April 19, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held in MOAC Mall Holdings LLC v. Transform Holdco LLC that Section 363(m) of the Bankruptcy Code is not jurisdictional. The decision requires parties timely to invoke that provision, or else risk forfeiting its protections. The decision also continues the Supreme Court’s trend of interpreting statutes to be non-jurisdictional (and thus waivable or forfeitable) in the absence of a clear congressional statement to the contrary.
Background
In a departure from prior precedent in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), a recent opinion by Judge Michael E. Wiles in In re Cortlandt Liquidating LLC,[1] effectively lowered the Bankruptcy Code section 502(b)(6) cap on rejection damages that a commercial real estate landlord may claim, by holding that the cap should be calculated using the “Time Approach,” rather than the “Rent Approach.”
Calculation of Lease Rejection Damages
Crypto firm bankruptcies and resulting disruption in the crypto ecosystem will continue to exacerbate liquidity and regulatory concerns in this space. Signs of contagion are evident as prices of almost every cryptocurrency type have halved in recent months. Since all participants supporting the crypto ecosystem are at risk, managing that risk is critical.
Fund managers should be prepared on multiple fronts, as the following examples illustrate:
Everything, everywhere, all at once is our risk thesis for 2023, but one must not forget about concentration risk. This issue has rocketed up diligence agendas for LPs and GPs alike as the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank proved it really was the bank for venture capital.The entry of SVB into receivership on March 10, 2023 highlighted just how central it had become to U.S.
The March 2023 banking crisis has been an unexpected “stress test” for dealing with liquidity issues.
When state regulators closed Silicon Valley Bank this past Friday, many startups understandably faced severe liquidity issues triggered by the sudden and unexpected loss of access to their deposits.
Fifth Circuit Remands Bankruptcy Court’s Refusal to Abstain from Adjudicating Uri Storm-Related Pricing Claims |
On January 4, 2023, Judge Glenn of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York issued a much-awaited decision in the Celsius Network LLC (along with its affiliated debtors, “Celsius” or the “Debtors”) chapter 11 cases relating to the ownership of crypto assets deposited by customers in the Celsius “Earn” rewards program accounts.
On December 5, 2022, in In re Global Cord Blood Corp., 2022 WL 17478530 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. Dec. 5, 2022) (“Global Cord”), the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (the “Court”) denied recognition of a proceeding pending in the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands (the “Cayman Proceeding” and the court, the “Cayman Court”) because it was more like a corporate governance and fraud remediation effort than a collective proceeding for the purpose of dealing with reorganization or liquidation, as Chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code requires.
Over the span of two weeks in July 2022, two of the largest retail-facing cryptocurrency platforms, Celsius and Voyager, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.