An Eleventh Circuit panel recently vacated two district court orders after sending the parties to mediation, and after the parties’ conditioned settlement on vacatur of the orders. In Hartford Casualty Insurance Company v. Crum & Forster Specialty Insurance Company, after being ordered to mediation a second time by the appellate panel, the parties reached a settlement contingent on the district court’s vacating its orders on summary judgment and attorney’s fees.

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.