Alice Eaton Featured at Wharton’s PE and Venture Capital Conference
Restructuring partner Alice Eaton spoke on the panel “Adjusting to a New Era: Redefining Value Creation in Uncertain Times,” as part of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania’s 2024 Private Equity and Venture Capital Conference on March 29. The panel covered the use of innovative financing instruments and structures for investments in distressed assets.
Elizabeth McColm Discusses Women in Restructuring at Winter Bankruptcy Conference
On April 22, 2024, in the chapter 11 cases of GOL Linhas Aéreas Inteligentes S.A.
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
On April 19, 2021, the United States Supreme Court denied a petition for certiorari from the Second Circuit’s decision in In re Tribune Company Fraudulent Conveyance Litigation (“Tribune II”),[1] leaving intact the Second Circuit’s decision upholding the safe harbor defense to avoidance actions und
Aereo, Inc. will be permitted to auction off its live television streaming technology to the highest bidder in accordance with a December 24 order, signed by a New York bankruptcy court judge, approving a deal between Aereo and the broadcast television networks on the sale process.
Voicing concern about the Rural Utilities Service’s (RUS) oversight of federal loans for rural broadband network projects, six members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee wrote to RUS Administrator and former FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein to request information on a $267 million loan granted by the RUS to Open Range Communications, a regional broadband service provider that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month. The RUS funds approved for Open Range during the administration of President George W.
FairPoint Communications’ 2008 purchase of New England landlines from Verizon Communications is the subject of a $2 billion fraudulent transfer lawsuit, filed late last week by a litigation trust formed by FairPoint creditors, who claim that the $2.3 billion acquisition forced FairPoint into bankruptcy just 18 months later. North Carolina-based FairPoint, which emerged from bankruptcy in January but continues to struggle financially, provides wireline telephony and Internet services to nearly two million customers in 18 states.
A consortium uniting Apple, Inc. and Microsoft with other top players in the software, electronics and wireless handset industries outplayed Google in a bankruptcy court auction for Nortel’s patent portfolio, posting a winning offer of $4.5 billion for the trove of 6,000 patents that cover fourth-generation wireless, data networking, Internet, and semiconductor technologies.
Google stepped closer to acquiring Nortel’s portfolio of 6,000 telecommunications, wireless and Internet patents on Monday as courts in the U.S. and Canada approved the web search giant’s “stalking horse” offer of $900 million for those patents. Announced on April 4, Google’s offer effectively constitutes the opening bid in an auction that will be decided at a joint hearing of the U.S. and Canadian courts on June 30. The auction also opens the latest chapter in the ongoing bankruptcy process for Nortel.
There was good news on two fronts this week for direct broadcast satellite (DBS) operator DISH Network. On Sunday, DISH settled a retransmission dispute with LIN Media with the signing of a new carriage contract that restored to DISH subscribers LIN broadcast network signals that were cut off on March 5. That development was followed by a New York bankruptcy court’s decision on Tuesday to approve a revised agreement through which DISH would acquire the assets of bankrupt mobile satellite services (MSS) provider DBSD North America for $1.5 billion.