From the Bankruptcy Court for the District of South Carolina :

In McCall v. Anderson Brothers Bank (In re McCall), Adv. Pro. No. 16-80008-jw (Bankr. D.S.C. 2016), the Honorable John E. Waites held that a creditor did not willfully violate the automatic stay under the particular facts of the case where the creditor initially refused to return a vehicle to the Debtor after she filed a Chapter 13 case and demanded the vehicle’s return.

A creditor recently received a wake-up call from the Bankruptcy Court for the District of South Carolina in In re Crawford, an opinion issued by the Court on June 8, 2015. In Crawford, the Court granted the debtors’ motion to compel their automobile lienholder to release its lien after the debtors made all payments under their Chapter 13 Plan. In addition, the Court awarded the debtors $7,325.00 in attorneys’ fees for the creditor’s failure to comply with the terms of the confirmed Plan.

Debt exchanges have long been utilized by distressed companies to address liquidity concerns and to take advantage of beneficial market conditions. A company saddled with burdensome debt obligations, for example, may seek to exchange existing notes for new notes with the same outstanding principal but with borrower-favorable terms, like delayed payment or extended maturation dates (a "Face Value Exchange"). Or the company might seek to exchange existing notes for new notes with a lower face amount, motivated by discounted trading values for the existing notes (a "Fair Value Exchange").

One of the primary fights underlying assumption of an unexpired lease or executory contract has long been over whether any debtor breaches under the agreement are “curable.” Before the 2005 amendments to the Bankruptcy Code, courts were split over whether historic nonmonetary breaches (such as a failure to maintain cash reserves or prescribed hours of operation) undermined a debtor’s ability to assume the lease or contract.