If you’re a secured lender, news of a Chapter 11 filing by your borrower can be unsettling. The commencement of a Chapter 11 case triggers an “automatic stay” which, with certain exceptions, operates as an injunction against all actions affecting the debtor or its property.3 Under the automatic stay, a secured lender holding a security interest in the debtor’s property may not repossess or foreclose on that property without the permission of the bankruptcy court.

While the arrival of His Royal Highness Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge has dominated the British (and the world) headlines this week, the U.K. Supreme Court delivered its own long awaited bundle of joy earlier today. In the latest decision in the laborious Nortel and Lehman litigations, the U.K. Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision and held that pension claims should not be treated as priority claims and, instead, they should rank equally with general unsecured claims.

In Ben Hur, Judah Ben-Hur’s team of white horses beat Messala’s black horses in the climactic chariot race. In a similar battle to the death in In re Indianapolis Downs, LLC, the white horses won again when Delaware Bankruptcy Judge Brendan L. Shannon confirmed Indianapolis Downs’ joint Chapter 11 plan of liquidation (the “Plan”) over a series of hard-fought objections focusing on the implications of a Restructuring Support Agreement and the propriety of third-party releases.

Tronox Incorporated and certain affiliates (the “Debtors”) emerged from Chapter 11 in February 2011 armed with a new capital structure and operational game plan, but that’s yesterday’s news. The flavor of the month is last Friday’s decision by Justice Allan L.

Bankruptcy courts have long debated the issue of whether an unsecured creditor can recover post-petition legal fees under the Bankruptcy Code. In the recent decision of In re Seda France, Inc. (located here), Justice Craig A.

The Chapter 11 plan for Washington Mutual Inc. (WaMu) took a page from Engelbert Humperdinck’s song book, with numerous third parties crooning Please Release Me, Let Me Go. On January 7, however, Judge Mary F. Walrath of the Delaware Bankruptcy Court denied confirmation of WaMu’s plan, demonstrating both Delaware’s long-standing view that third party releases should rarely be granted and a clear and laudable preference for the Psychedelic Furs’ No Release unless, like Buffalo Springfield, you Pay the Price.

On May 20, 2010 the Senate passed the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010 (the "Senate Bill") 59-39, only hours after the cloture vote ended debate on the bill. The House passed its version—the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 (the "House Bill")—in December 2009. The primary stated focus of the Senate and House Bills is to prevent the failure of the "too big to fail" institutions and to avoid government (taxpayer) bailouts in the future.

In a Bracewell & Giuliani client alert dated December 7, 2009 (which can be found here), we reported on a decision ("WaMu I") from Judge Walrath of the Delaware Bankruptcy Court that required a group of bondholders of Washington Mutual, Inc. ("WMI") to comply fully with the disclosure requirements of Bankruptcy Rule 2019.