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In In re Charles A. Grogan and Sarah A. Grogan, No. 11-65409 (Bankr. D. Ore. Sept. 10, 2013), the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Oregon confirmed the Debtors’ Third Amended Chapter 11 plan. The Debtors are Christmas tree farmers and their plan proposed to liquidate the majority of their Christmas tree farm and sell six major parcels of land. While the two main secured creditors were deemed to have rejected the plan, the court found the cram down standards of section 1129(b)(2)(A) were applicable.

The Seventh Circuit has explicitly adopted the Second Circuit’s broad interpretation of the terms “transfer” and “settlement payment” in the Bankruptcy Code’s safe harbor provisions. See Peterson v. Somers Dublin Ltd., No. 12-2463, --- F.3d ----, 2013 WL 4767495 (7th Cir. Sept.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York recently held that an ad hoc committee of bondholders, holding $162.5 in senior secured bonds, lacked standing to participate in the issuer-debtor’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case.  In re American Roads LLC, 2013 WL 4601006 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y.

In its decision of 11 July 2013, Reference No. 21 ICdo 21/2012, the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic comprehensively expressed its opinion on the substantive legal aspects of re-pledging a receivable burdened by a lien and the possibility of negotiating a contractual waiver of re-pledging receivables. According to the decision, the pledging of a receivable does not preclude the possibility of establishing another lien on the same receivable. This decision is crucial for pledgees, typically financing banks.

Case background

In an adversary proceeding arising out of the Chapter 11 case of Residential Capital, LLC (“ResCap”), the bankruptcy court denied in part and granted in part a secured lenders’ motion to dismiss certain claims in the case. Official Comm. Of Unsecured Creds. V. UMB Bank, N.A. (In re Residential Capital, LLC), Adv. P. No. 13-01277, -- B.R. --, 2013 WL 4069512 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. Aug. 13, 2013). At issue was certain collateral, which was part of the secured lenders’ collateral, that the lenders released to enable ResCap to pledge it to different third parties.

A Western District of New York bankruptcy court has held that the safe harbor provisions of section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code apply to leveraged buy-outs of privately held securities. See Cyganowski v. Lapides (In re Batavia Nursing Home, LLC), No. 12-1145 (Bankr. W.D.N.Y. July 29, 2013).

With effect as per 1 July 2013, the Austrian legislator has enacted an amendment to the Limited Liability Companies Act (GesRÄG 2013) providing primarily for a de-crease of the minimum share capital to EUR 10,000, as well as a decrease of the formation costs. These changes are aimed at maintaining Austrian limited liability companies’ competitiveness in comparison to other European limited capital compa-nies and to fostering the formation of new limited liability companies also by small service providers.

In the case, the insolvency proceedings had not been used for the purposes provided by Law 85/2006 on insolvency proceedings (Law 85) but for other purposes.

Banks in Bulgaria are seriously concerned with borrowers fraudulently manipulating their accountancy books with the effect that banks’ security interests are declared invalid and banks are declassed into ordinary (unsecured) insolvency creditors.