Michigan Court Rule 2.622 (the “Receivership Rule”) governs the appointment of receivers. The Receivership Rule was amended in 2014 to provide more explicit guidance on what courts and attorneys should consider when nominating a receiver. Specifically, the 2014 amendments addressed concerns that trial courts were disregarding qualified nominations made by the parties to the litigation in favor of judicial discretion in appointing a disinterested party to maintain the receivership estate.

A Supreme Court ruling this week should give creditors a powerful tool to collect their debts from debtors who try to transfer assets before seeking bankruptcy protection. The primary reason an individual may turn to personal bankruptcy is to protect assets from creditor collection while obtaining a “discharge” from debts. Such protection is increasingly necessary where an individual is being pursued by one or more creditors, particularly where those creditors may have obtained (or are about to obtain) judgments against the individual.

What showing must creditors make to be granted the right to prosecute claims on behalf of the bankruptcy estate?

When a bankrupt company’s most valuable assets include consumer information, a tension arises between bankruptcy policy aimed at maximizing asset value, on the one hand, and privacy laws designed to protect consumers’ personal information, on the other.

The U.S. Supreme Court decided on Monday, June 1, 2015, that Chapter 7 debtors may not rid themselves of second-mortgage liens in cases where, at the time of the bankruptcy, the first mortgage is undersecured. The decision reverses two Eleventh Circuit rulings that would have made such liens disappear under Section 506(d) of the Bankruptcy Code. 

A bankruptcy case^[1] (no surprise) has produced another instructive court ruling on post-acceleration enforceability of a prepayment (make-whole) premium provision contained in a debt instrument. This latest lesson comes via the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, affirming a ruling of that district’s U.S.

Social media accounts can be “property of the estate” in a bankruptcy case of a business, and thus belong to the business, even when the contents of the accounts are intermingled with personal content of managers and owners. This principle was recently confirmed by the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas in In re CTLI, LLC (Bankr. S.D. Tex. Apr.

In an opinion issued today, the Supreme Court held that debtors do not have the right to immediately appeal a bankruptcy court’s decision denying confirmation of a proposed reorganization plan. This decision resolves a circuit split, and confirms the balance of power between debtors and creditors in the plan confirmation process. As the Supreme Court explained, “the knowledge that [a debtor] will have no guaranteed appeal from a denial should encourage the debtor to work with creditors and the trustee to develop a confirmable plan as promptly as possible.”

We don’t know about you, but we’ve been following the contentious litigation between the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and debt-relief services company Morgan Drexen pretty closely. The CFPB filed its lawsuit in August 2013, alleging, among other things, that the company deceived consumers into paying unlawful up-front fees for debt relief services by disguising them as fees related to “sham” bankruptcy services.

Client Alert February 5, 2015 Second Circuit to Lenders: Get Your UCC Filings Right By Geoffrey R. Peck and Jordan A. Wishnew1 INTRODUCTION On January 21, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued an opinion regarding a mistaken UCC-3 termination statement that all loan market participants should consider carefully.