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On November 18, 2011, U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III of the Southern District of New York granted the requests of the attorneys general of New York and Delaware to intervene in the proceeding seeking approval of an $8.5 billion settlement between Bank of America Corp. and the Bank of New York Mellon, as trustee for several trusts that issued Countrywide Financial Corp.

On December 1, Bankruptcy Rule 2019 became effective.  This rule relates to the disclosure requirements in Chapter 9 and Chapter 11 cases for holders of distressed loans and eliminates the requirement for the disclosure of the price paid for a claim in bankruptcy and the date the claim was acquired (except in very limited circumstances) in Rule 2019 verified statements.  Rule 2019.

The Supreme Court of Canada granted leave to appeal yesterday in Indalex Limited (Re). This is an appeal from the Ontario Court of Appeal (2011 ONCA 265). Please see our Financial Services and Banking E-news Bulletin dated April 25, 2011, for a detailed summary of the decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal.

A number of commentators have written articles about Part IV of the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA), which deals with recognizing and enforcing foreign insolvency proceedings, however little has been written about the treatment of corporate groups in this context. Part IV of the CCAA deals with entities on an individual basis, and how to deal with corporate groups is not well addressed in international insolvency legislation.

Structured finance transaction documents have typically included subordination provisions in their post-default waterfalls, effectively changing a swap counterparty’s right to get paid from above that of the noteholders to below that of the noteholders.

In its ruling on Wednesday 27 July in the matter of Belmont Park Investments PTY Ltd v BNY Corporate Trustee Services Lte & Anor [2011] UKSC 38 the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom has dismissed the appeal by Lehman Brothers Special Finance Inc. ("LSF") relating to the validity of an alleged anti-deprivation provision known as a 'flip' provision which, has the effect of altering the payment priority order as a result of a bankruptcy of the relevant swap counterparty, in this case Lehman Brothers.

On July 25, 2011, JPMorgan Bank filed a third-party complaint against the FDIC in the Southern District of Ohio, claiming the FDIC indemnified JPMorgan when it agreed to buy assets from Washington Mutual, which went bankrupt in 2008.  JPMorgan alleges that it only accepted certain narrow WaMu liabilities in its agreement with the FDIC, specifically excluding liabilities relating to WaMu's pre-closing activities.  Western and Southern Life Insurance Company has since sued JPMorgan for fraudulent misrepresentation in connection with the sale of $650 million in mortgage-backed securi

The Indalex decision, released by the Ontario Court of Appeal earlier this year, gave priority to pension plan members over other secured creditors that had advanced funds to keep Indalex from bankruptcy.  This case came as a surprise to many practitioners and may have far-reaching implications for pension plan administrators and creditors alike.&nbs