The Olympics may be over, but a potential clash of titans is gearing up in the Chapter 9 bankruptcy case of Stockton, California. Municipal bond insurer National Public Finance Guarantee Corporation (“National”) has challenged Stockton’s eligibility to be a debtor under Chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy Code, and is focusing expressly on the c

In Re LightSquared LP, the Ontario Court of Superior Justice [Commercial List] (the “Canadian Court”) refined the test for determining the location of a debtor’s center of main interest (“COMI”) under Part IV of the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (the “CCAA”), which is the Canadian equivalent of Chapter 15 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

In Ontario, a debtor-in-possession (“DIP”) lender is usually granted a charge by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (Commercial List) (the “Court”) over the assets of the debtor which is under the protection of the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (the “CCAA”) to secure the repayment of the DIP loan.  The priority of the charge is set out in the order granting the charge.  Most such orders provide that prior to exercising its rights and remedies against the debtor after an event of default, the DIP lender must appl

In Re Crystallex, 2012 ONCA 404, the Ontario Court of Appeal unanimously upheld unusually broad DIP financing arrangements granted pursuant to section 11.2 of the Canadian Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) despite the vociferous objections of substantially all of Crystallex’s creditors.  By dismissing the appeal, the Court endorsed the supervising CCAA judge’s approval of:

On Tuesday, June 5, 2012 the Supreme Court of Canada heard an appeal of the Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision in Re IndalexLimited (“Indalex”). The Indalex decision concerned, among other things, the priority of a deemed trust for certain unpaid pension amounts over the super-priority charge granted in favour of a DIP Lender.

In Re Crystallex, the Ontario Court of Appeal (“Court of Appeal”) unanimously upheld three orders of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (“OSCJ”) that (1) authorized bridge financing, (2) authorized interim financing

Meredith Whitney, one of the first financial analysts to foresee the collapse of the housing market, famously predicted in December 2010 that a wave of municipal bond defaults was on the way. The wave, however, has yet to materialize, and the bankruptcy filing of Stockton, California will likely not change th

The Supreme Court has cleared the way for Irving Picard, the Trustee overseeing the Madoff liquidation proceeding, to distribute billions of dollars to victims of Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.  On Monday, the Court declined to hear appeals in two cases from the Second Circuit challenging Picard’s formula for repaying victims.

The chapter 11 case of mortgage lender and servicer Residential Capital, LLC (“ResCap”) is fascinating on a number of levels. Its parent company, Ally Financial, Inc.

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice (Commercial List) recently declined to grant a receivership order under section 243 of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (Canada) (“BIA”) and s. 101 of the Courts of Justice Act (Ontario) (“CJA”) or to approve a proposed  “quick flip” transaction among related companies on the basis of an insufficient evidentiary record. Insolvency practitioners should take note of this case, 9-Ball Interests Inc. v.