As predicted, the court in Tokyo has ruled that Mt. Gox will be liquidated. An “Announcement of Commencement of Bankruptcy Proceedings” was posted overnight April 24 by the Japanese bankruptcy trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi on the Mt. Gox site to confirm that the company is officially in bankruptcy (liquidation) in Japan. The Announcement also includes a “Frequently Asked Questions” section to give a very high level overview of the liquidation process.
On April 17, 2014, the United States Bankruptcy Judge Sean H. Lane issued an opinion in the Waterford Wedgwood bankruptcy discussing at length one of the defenses available to preference defendants. The opinion turns upon the scope of “ordinary business terms,” the objective prong of the ordinary course of business defense.
A recent opinion out of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (Richmond Division) serves as a reminder to secured creditors to steer clear of conduct that a bankruptcy court may deem inequitable and provide the court with cause to limit the secured creditor’s credit bid rights. In In re The Free Lance-Star Publishing Co.
On April 16, Mt. Gox’s civil rehabilitation proceeding in Tokyo (something similar to a U.S. Chapter 11) was dismissed and the initial stages of a bankruptcy liquidation under Japanese law began. An Interim Administrator (Nobuaki Kobaysahi) has been named until the Japanese court decides whether the liquidation will begin and whether a different Administrator replaces the Interim Administrator. How this situation came to be is an interesting tale.
The Ninth Circuit’s Bankruptcy Appellate Panel (BAP) recently upheld the disallowance of a credit union’s claims after the credit union’s “disgruntled employee” failed to file the proofs of claim before the claims bar date.
The case of Spokane Law Enforcement Federal Credit Union v. Barker (In re Barker) serves as a cautionary tale—reminding creditors and their attorneys of the importance of timely filing proofs of claim.
Mt. Gox filed a motion requesting the U.S. Bankruptcy Court’s approval of the form of the official notification of the May 6 recognition hearing as well as approving the service via email. The motion also seeks to establish a deadline of seven days before that hearing for any party to object to the request for recognition of the Japanese insolvency case. Additional notice would be provided by posting an approved form of notification on the Mt. Gox web site as well as at the Reddit.com site.
Tuesday evening, the Plaintiffs in the Illinois Class Action litigation filed motions with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Dallas asking that court to terminate the temporary stay it recently granted to Mt. Gox. They also asked that Robert Marie Mark Karpeles (the Foreign Representative for Mt. Gox) be ordered to provide testimony under oath in the United States regarding the Chapter 15 filing.
On Monday, March 10, 2014, the companies that own and operate the Sbarro pizza chain, Sbarro LLC and 33 affiliates, filed for bankruptcy reorganization under Chapter 11 of the federal Bankruptcy Code. The Sbarro companies operate 217 restaurants in the U.S. and there are 582 franchised restaurants, 176 in the U.S. and 406 at international locations.
Introduction
The Court of Appeals of Wisconsin, applying Wisconsin law, has held that a policyholder's bankruptcy did not relieve an insurer of its obligations to pay for "loss" under a policy endorsement that included a bankruptcy provision.Hollingsworth v. Landing Condos. of Waukesha Ass'n, Inc., 2014 WL 839244 (Wis. Ct. App. Mar. 5, 2014).