On May 30, 2012, RG Steel, LLC and various related entities (collectively "RG Steel" or "Debtors") filed petitions for bankruptcy in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. According to the Declaration of the company's CFO (the "Decl."), RG Steel enters bankruptcy as the fourth largest flat-rolled steel company in the United States. At full capacity, the company can produce 8.2 million tons of steel per year. Decl. at 2.
On June 22, 2012, Ritz Camera & Image, LLC, and various related entities (collectively, the "Debtors" or "Ritz II"), filed chapter 11 petitions for bankruptcy in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. Those familiar with Ritz Camera know that the company's predecessor, Ritz Camera Centers, Inc.
Applying Georgia law, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Georgia has voided a surplus lines policy on the grounds that the insured, a purported hedge fund management firm, concealed that it was operating a Ponzi scheme, submitted an inaccurate financial statement, and misrepresented that its investment funds were “stable.”Perkins v. Am. Int’l Specialty Lines Ins. Co., 2012 WL 2105908 (Bankr. N.D. Ga. Apr. 3, 2012).
On May 24, 2012, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (District Court) issued an opinion with significant ramifications for law firms seeking to hire former partners from bankrupt law firms. At issue was whether, under New York partnership law, the law firms that hired former partners of Coudert Brothers LLP (Coudert), a dissolved and bankrupt law partnership, must account for profits that the former Coudert partners earned while completing work on open client matters they took with them from Coudert.
Introduction
Avoidance Preferences Generally
As many creditors have experienced firsthand, the bankruptcy code allows a debtor, trustee or other estate representative to recover certain payments made within 90 days of the date a bankruptcy case was filed.
The rules applying to the filing of proofs of claim were overhauled substantially in 2011 and require parties filing proofs of claim in bankruptcy proceedings to take heed, especially where the debtor is a natural person (an individual).
On May 8, 2012, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (the “Court”) entered its Order (the “Order”) Establishing Procedures to Assert Claims Arising under Section 503(b)(9) of the Bankruptcy Code (“503(b)(9) Claims”) in the chapter 11 cases of AFA Investment, Inc. and its affiliated debtors (collectively, the “Debtors”) (Bankr. D. Del. 12-11127 (MFW)).
Those who were eagerly anticipating the final dénouement on May 15, 2012, in the epic battle between Madoff Trustee Irving Picard and the numerous defendants, constituting the Wilpon-Katz-Mets individual, business, family trust and charitable interests (collectively, the “Wilpons”), will apparently have to wait at least until May 31, 2012. The approval of the final Settlement Agreement by Federal District Judge Jed S. Rakoff, originally scheduled to occur at a hearing on May 15, 2012 at 4 p.m., has been postponed until May 31, 2012 at 4 p.m.