The English Court of Appeal decision in Caterpillar v John Holt & Company, and its analysis of “retention of title” and “no set-off” clauses, will be of interest to commodity traders, compliance officers and legal counsel in industries dealing with energy and natural resources internationally.

On January 17, 2014, Chief Judge Kevin Gross of the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware issued a decision  limiting the right of a holder of a secured claim to credit bid at a bankruptcy sale. In re Fisker Auto. Holdings, Inc.,  Case No. 13-13087-KG, 2014 WL 210593 (Bankr. D. Del. Jan. 17, 2014). Fisker raises significant issues for lenders who  are interested in selling their secured debt and for parties who buy secured debt with the goal of using the debt to  acquire the borrower’s assets through a credit bid.

Northern District of Oklahoma Chief Bankruptcy Judge Terrence L. Michael’s introduction to the opinion in In re Harrison (2013 WL 6859303) serves as a good introduction to this post:

In a closely-watched case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit recently affirmed the decision of the Delaware District Court, holding that bankruptcy claims are subject to disallowance under section 502(d) of the Bankruptcy Code despite their subsequent sale to a third-party. In In re KB Toys, Inc., No. 13-1197 (3d Cir. Nov.

In connection with the bankruptcy of a bank holding company (the “Bank Holdco”) and its operating bank subsidiary (the “Bank”), there are often different classes of creditors competing for one tax refund.

One of the ironic issues for failing banks has been the fact that banks that they have had to continue to deal with their borrowers and depositors in the ordinary course of business even though they are already in the queue for resolution by the FDIC. So for example, loans continue to get renewed and documents executed. What happens if you renew a loan shortly before the bank fails, do you have some sort of defense to enforcement of the loan when the successor bank or the FDIC makes demand on you?

On 13th August 2013, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and attorneys general from six US states and the District of Columbia filed suit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia to block the merger between US Airways and American Airlines. Days before, a group of American Airlines customers filed a claim that the merger would violate Section 7 of the Clayton Act.

While newly discovered Element 115 (or “ununpentium” as scientists are temporarily calling it) appears to have vanished quickly in a flash of radiation in front of the eyes of Swedish scientists, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Oklahoma confirmed that make-whole is a well-established stable compound and here to stay.

While the arrival of His Royal Highness Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge has dominated the British (and the world) headlines this week, the U.K. Supreme Court delivered its own long awaited bundle of joy earlier today. In the latest decision in the laborious Nortel and Lehman litigations, the U.K. Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision and held that pension claims should not be treated as priority claims and, instead, they should rank equally with general unsecured claims.

When the Fifth Circuit, in a case of first impression for that circuit and all of its sister circuit, last year ruled in In re Chilton, 11-40377, 2012 WL 762924 (5th Cir. Mar. 12, 2012) that inherited IRAs constituted retirement funds within the “plain meaning” of §522 of the Bankruptcy Code and were thus exempt from the bankruptcy estate, under § 522(d)(12) (the federal exemptions), many thought the issue was settled.