On December 13, 2021, T.W. LaQuay Marine, LLC a Texas-based freight transporter on all inland waterways, filed a petition for relief under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas (Case No. 21-60101). The company reports $10 to $50 million in both assets and liabilities.

On December 14, 2021, All Year Holdings Limited, a Brooklyn-based real estate development, construction, acquisition, leasing and management firm, owned by Yoel Goldman, filed a petition for relief under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (Case No. 21-12051).

On December 6, 2021, Strike, LLC of Woodlands, TX filed a petition for relief under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas (Case No. 21-90054) along with several affiliates.

On November 17, 2021, Alto Maipo SpA, a Chile-based run-of-the-river project, which uses the natural flow of a river to generate electricity without the construction of a dam, along with subsidiary Alto Maipo Delaware LLC, filed a petition for relief under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (Case No. 21-11507). The company reports $1 billion to $10 billion in both assets and liabilities.

On November 16, 2021, Riverbed Technology, Inc., an information technology company headquartered in San Francisco, along with various affiliates, filed a petition for relief under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (Case No. 21-11503). The company reports $1 billion to $10 billion in both assets and liabilities.

In In re Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, 12 F.4th 171 (2d Cir. 2021), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit revived litigation filed by the trustee administering the assets of defunct investment firm Bernard L. Madoff Inv. Sec. LLC ("MIS") seeking to recover hundreds of millions of dollars in allegedly fraudulent transfers made to former MIS customers and certain other defendants as part of the Madoff Ponzi scheme.

Whether the pre-Bankruptcy Code "solvent debtor exception" requiring the payment of postpetition interest to dissenting unsecured creditors under a chapter 11 plan survived the enactment of the Bankruptcy Code in 1978 has been the subject of a handful of recent court rulings. This is, perhaps, most notably true of the chapter 11 case of Ultra Petroleum Corp. in connection with a protracted battle over the debtor's obligation to pay make-whole premiums to unsecured noteholders.

In yet another chapter in the tortured saga of the fallout from the failed 2007 leveraged buyout ("LBO") of media giant The Tribune Co. ("Tribune") in a transaction orchestrated by real-estate mogul Sam Zell, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit largely upheld lower court dismissals of claims asserted by Tribune's chapter 11 liquidation trustee against various shareholders, officers, directors, employees, and financial advisors for, among other things, avoidance and recovery of fraudulent and preferential transfers, breach of fiduciary duties, and professional malpractice.

Despite the absence of any explicit directive in the Bankruptcy Code, it is well understood that a debtor must file a chapter 11 petition in good faith. The bankruptcy court can dismiss a bad faith filing "for cause," which has commonly been found to exist in cases where the debtor seeks chapter 11 protection as a tactic to gain an advantage in pending litigation. A ruling recently handed down by the U.S.

It is well recognized that, in keeping with the "fresh start" or "rehabilitative" policy, the Bankruptcy Code invalidates after-acquired property clauses in prepetition security agreements, but also includes an exception to the general rule for prepetition liens on the proceeds, products, offspring, or profits of prepetition collateral. Less well understood is that there is an "exception to the exception" if a bankruptcy court determines that the "equities of the case" suggest that property acquired by the estate should be free of such liens.