We previously posted about a recent effort to address an issue left unresolved in Baker Botts v. ASARCO, 135 S. Ct.
Baker Botts L.L.P. has filed its application for retention as debtors’ counsel in In re New Gulf Resources, LLC, et al. (Case No. 15-12556, Bankr. D. Del.), and the application incudes a novel “Fee Premium.” Essentially, Baker Botts’ aggregate fees incurred in the case will be increased by 10% (subject to court approval) but … Baker Botts will waive the entire Fee Premium “if, and only if, Baker Botts does not incur material fees and expenses defending against any objection with respect to an interim or final fee application.”
More than three dozen US energy industry companies (E&Ps) filed for chapter 11 this year, with three more – New Gulf Resources LLC, Magnum Hunter Resources Corp., and Cubic Energy Inc. – filing just this third week of December. According to BloombergBriefs.com, even before these most recent filings. energy sector filings accounted for 26% of all chapter 11 filings in 2015, which is the largest share of filings for any sector. Just when the industry thought oil prices could not go any lower, they have.
“Stop in the name of love, before you break my heart”
That’s what bankruptcy lawyers are now proclaiming in the wake of Baker Botts v. Asarco, in which the Supreme Court held that the debtor’s law firm could not be paid its “fees on fees” in defending against an objection to their fees. Two disclaimers. First, our firm represented the winning party in Baker Botts, Second, I am a bankruptcy lawyer and I would like to be paid all of my fees, including fees on fees. But it ain’t right or, at least, it ain’t what Congress authorized in Bankruptcy Code § 330.
Introduction
Extra Extra Read All About It. It was a cataclysmic weekend in college football for the Big 12 conference. The college football playoff committee elevated the one-loss Ohio State Buckeyes (Big 10) into the fourth and final slot in the inaugural College Football Playoff, taming a one-loss Baylor Bears (Big 12) sloth and a one-loss TCU Horned Frogs (Big 12) colony in the process. Some naysayers may look to the Big 12′s soft schedules and the absence of a league tiebreaker game as drivers of the committee’s decision.
If you’re a secured lender, news of a Chapter 11 filing by your borrower can be unsettling. The commencement of a Chapter 11 case triggers an “automatic stay” which, with certain exceptions, operates as an injunction against all actions affecting the debtor or its property.3 Under the automatic stay, a secured lender holding a security interest in the debtor’s property may not repossess or foreclose on that property without the permission of the bankruptcy court.
Mortgage litigators often face a variety of bankruptcy issues. There are three main chapters of bankruptcy that affect the average mortgage litigator: Chapter 7, Chapter 13 and Chapter 11. Upon the filing of Chapter 7, Chapter 13 and Chapter 11 by a borrower, the bankruptcy code provides for a bankruptcy automatic stay. The automatic stay provides that all judicial or administrative proceedings or actions against a borrower must immediately stop. This includes all foreclosure actions, eviction actions and general state court litigation against a borrower.
The inclusion of pre-bankruptcy waivers in “standard issue” credit documents has generated a host of litigation in bankruptcy cases about the enforceability of such provisions.
Readers may remember the dramatic restructuring of the GM and Chrysler dealer networks as part of the bankruptcy proceedings for each auto maker in 2009. The state auto dealer franchise statutes and their protection against dealer terminations were summarily preempted by the bankruptcy proceedings and the pre-condition of dealer network reduction for the necessary loans from the federal government to the debtors in possession. Dealers challenged this action in the Court of Claims, and by an April 7, 2014 decision in A&D Auto Sales, Inc. et al. v.