The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently held that section 1129(a)(10) of the Bankruptcy Code – a provision which, in effect, prohibits confirmation of a plan unless the plan has been accepted by at least one impaired class of claims – applies on “per plan” rather than a “per debtor” basis, even when the plan at issue covers multiple debtors. In re Transwest Resort Properties, Inc., 2018 WL 615431 (9th Cir. Jan. 25, 2018). The Court is the first circuit court to address the issue.
Some six years after the United States Supreme Court decided Stern v. Marshall, courts continue to grapple with the decision’s meaning and how much it curtails the exercise of bankruptcy court jurisdiction.[1] The U.S.
On March 22, 2017, the United States Supreme Court held that bankruptcy courts cannot approve a “structured dismissal”—a dismissal with special conditions or that does something other than restoring the “prepetition financial status quo”—providing for distributions that deviate from the Bankruptcy Code’s priority scheme absent the consent of affected creditors. Czyzewski v.Jevic Holding Corp., No. 15-649, 580 U.S. ___ (2017), 2017 WL 1066259, at *3 (Mar. 22, 2017).
On March 29, 2016, the Second Circuit addressed the breadth and application of the Bankruptcy Code's safe harbor provisions in an opinion that applied to two cases before it. The court analyzed whether: (i) the Bankruptcy Code's safe harbor provisions preempt individual creditors' state law fraudulent conveyance claims; and (ii) the automatic stay bars creditors from asserting such claims while the trustee is actively pursuing similar claims under the Bankruptcy Code. In In re Tribune Co.
On April 1, a bevy of dollar amounts set forth in the Bankruptcy Code will change. Some of these are quite important to substantive relief, and others are quite important to making sure you don’t look bad in front of the client or your favorite (least favorite?) judge. We have Section 104 of the Bankruptcy Code to thank for this malpractice-inducing enterprise, which we enjoy every three years. See 11 U.S.C. § 104 (a) (“On April 1, 1998, and at each 3-year interval ending on April 1 thereafter, each dollar amount in effect under sections . . . shall be adjusted . . . .”).
Over the summer, four appellate court decisions addressed the doctrine of equitable mootness: In re Tribune Media Co., 799 F.3d 272 (3d Cir. 2015); In re One2One Commc’ns, LLC, No. 13-3410, 2015 WL 4430302 (3d Cir.
There has been a relatively recent uptick in plaintiffs’ counsel filing putative class actions in multiple state and federal courts for alleged violations of a debtor’s bankruptcy discharge injunction based upon the debtor’s receipt of post-discharge mortgage-related communications. These claims assert putative class action challenges to post-discharge communications alleged to be attempts at personal collection of the discharged mortgage debt.
On May 21, 2015, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (the "Third Circuit") held that in rare instances a bankruptcy court may approve a "structured dismissal"- that is, a dismissal "that winds up the bankruptcy with certain conditions attached instead of simply dismissing the case and restoring the status quo ante" - that deviates from the Bankruptcy Code's priority scheme. See Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors v. CIT Group/Business Credit Inc. (In re Jevic Holding Corp.), Case No.
Earlier this year, we reported on a decision limiting a secured creditor's right to credit bid purchased debt (capping the credit bid at the discounted price paid for the debt) to facilitate an auction in Fisker Automotive Holdings' chapter 11 case.1 In the weeks that followed, the debtor held a competitive (nineteen-round) auction and ultimately selected Wanxiang America Corporation, rather than the secured creditor, as the w