In a recent per curium opinion, the Fifth Circuit recommitted to its practice of dismissing claims against court-appointed fiduciaries when plaintiffs fail to obtain permission before bringing suit. The court rested its decision on the Barton doctrine, which other courts, including the Eleventh Circuit, have found inapplicable in similar circumstances.

In an increasing number of restructuring cases of globally-operating companies, companies or funds outside Japan are becoming strong sponsor candidates, and even more foreign players are expected to be actively selected as sponsor candidates in the future.

In this article, we focus on the sponsor selection process in out-of-court restructurings and legal insolvency procedures in Japan, based on recent actual cases.

This post is about a junkyard, hogs getting slaughtered, and a bankruptcy judge poised to sanction a creditor and her counsel. The message from the case to would-be claimants in other cases is simple: do not “overreach.”In re U Lock, Inc., Case No. 22-20823, 2023 WL 308210, at *1 (Bankr. W.D. Pa. Jan. 17, 2023).

The concept of “property of the estate” is important in bankruptcy because it determines what property can be used or distributed for the benefit of the debtor’s creditors. Defined by section 541 of the Bankruptcy Code, “property of the estate” broadly encompasses the debtor’s interests in property, with certain additions and exceptions provided for in the Code. See 11 U.S.C. § 541. Difficult questions can arise in a contractual relationship between a debtor and a counterparty about whether an entity actually owns a particular asset or merely has some contractual right.

In 2022, there were several high-profile crypto bankruptcy filings. A big question in these cases is whether there will be any money to satisfy unsecured creditor claims. If there are funds to distribute, then the creditors’ claims will become more valuable, and the cases will become even more interesting.

FTX Trading Ltd. ("FTX") and its affiliates (collectively, "FTX Group"), which operated one of the largest crypto-asset exchanges in the world through the FTX.com platform, filed for Chapter 11 in the United States on November 11 last year.

It’s often hard to persuade a bankruptcy court to grant a motion for substantial contribution. Any attorney thinking about making a motion should first ask herself two questions. First, has my work benefitted both my client and other creditors? Second, did my work result in more than an incidental benefit to the bankruptcy estate? If the answer to either question is no, then the attorney should forget about making the motion. The time spent on it will be wasted, and the motion will be denied.

The high-profile Chapter 11 case of the FTX Trading group involves its Japanese affiliates including FTX Japan, which operated a registered cryptocurrency exchange in Japan and has been ordered by the Financial Services Agency of Japan to suspend its business upon the filing for Chapter 11. Recently, a motion was made for entry of orders approving, among other things, the group to sell FTX Japan's business through so-called “363 sale”.

Restructuring & Insolvency Newsletter

December 2022 (Vol.1)

The first case in Japanese history where the debtor used simplified rehabilitation proceedings as a tool to "cram down"

minority lenders

I. Introduction II. Overview of the procedures used

- Turnaround ADR and simplified rehabilitation proceedings

III. Marelli case IV. Expected future developments

Mori Hamada & Matsumoto

We have previously blogged about Siegel v. Fitzgerald, the Supreme Court decision last June that invalidated the 2018 difference in fees between bankruptcy cases filed in Bankruptcy Administrator judicial districts and U.S. Trustee judicial districts.