Voyager Digital Assets, Inc., a leading cryptocurrency brokerage and lending platform, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on July 5, 2022 in the Southern District of New York following a recent financial crisis impacting the crypto industry, which investors are calling the “crypto winter.” The filing was followed by the Chapter 11 bankruptcy of Celsius Networks. While the situation is fluid, these two filings could be the beginning of a series of bankruptcies by major cryptocurrency companies.

Following a July 6, 2022 memorandum opinion from the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, lenders and noteholders seeking to preserve the priority of their liens must make any desired subordination protections explicit in their security documents. Judge Craig T. Goldblatt’s decision in In re TPC Group Inc. upholds a prepetition “uptier” transaction and narrows the issues before the Bankruptcy Court regarding TPC Group Inc.’s desired entry into a debtor-in-possession loan with an ad hoc group of noteholders over the dissent of minority holders.

¹ The Third Circuit also affirmed a judgment that awarded the senior creditor damages for the misapplication of such collateral proceeds in violation of the intercreditor agreement’s turnover provision.

On March 15, 2022, the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico announced that the Plan of Adjustment for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico became effecfive, more than four years aher Puerto Rico commenced restructuring proceedings under Title III of the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act (“PROMESA”). PROMESA is a bespoke piece of federal legislafion enacted in 2016 to address Puerto Rico’s debt crisis, and incorporates most of chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy Code.

On March 14, 2022, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (the “Fifth Circuit”) revisited the issue of the rejection of filed-rate contracts in bankruptcy where such contracts are governed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”). The ruling marks the first time the Fifth Circuit has addressed this issue since its 2004 decision in In re Mirant Corp.¹ In Federal Energy Regulatory Commission v.

For a company with robust data protection and recovery practices, a ransomware attack may cause a few extra headaches, but it won’t wipe the company out. Companies without those protections in place, however, risk allowing ransomware to bankrupt their entire enterprise.

A recent order from the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas (the “Court”) allowed a debtor to reopen a completed auction based on a significantly more attractive, but untimely, bid. The late bid was approximately three times the cash consideration of the previously declared winning bid, and also provided for the additional containment of potential environmental risks. The decision is being appealed to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas (the “District Court”).

On December 22, 2021, Judge Mary Walrath of the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware held in In re The Hertz Corp. that redemption premiums may potentially qualify as unmatured interest, and that, to the extent that such redemption premiums are unmatured interest on unsecured debt, then creditors would only be entitled to receive the federal judgment rate, not the contractual rate of interest.

Judge Craig Whitley’s recent transfer of the LTL Management case will bring a high-profile "Texas Two-Step" chapter 11 bankruptcy to New Jersey, and it may open a new chapter in how courts approach the novel transaction designed to isolate and address certain mass-tort liabilities.

On October 29, 2021, Judge Laura Taylor Swain, the presiding judge in the Puerto Rico bankruptcy case, ruled that approximately $2 billion in intragovernmental loan claims were subordinated to bonds issued by the Puerto Rico Highway and Transportation Authority (“HTA”) pursuant to an assignment and security agreement.¹ The Court’s opinion