Section 1111(b) of the United States Bankruptcy Code (the “Code”) is one of its least understood provisions, primarily due to its somewhat opaque language. This Code subsection is divided into two distinct but related parts. The first part, section 1111(b)(1), provides that a nonrecourse secured claim in a Chapter 11 case will be treated “as if such holder had recourse against the debtor on account of such claim, whether or not such holder has such recourse” subject to two exceptions.

A parochial elementary school and high school were recently sued in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of New York by Robert Geltzer, a bankruptcy trustee.  The suits, Geltzer v. Our Lady of Mt. Carmel-St. Benedicta School and Geltzer v. Xavarian High School, were brought in an effort to recover tuition payments made by a student’s parents who had later filed for bankruptcy. (Kelley Drye & Warren LLP represented Our Lady of Mt. Carmel-St.

Reliance Insurance Company was placed in liquidation on Oct. 3, 2001 by Order of the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. The Reliance liquidation was, and still is, one of the largest insurance company liquidations in U.S. history. Reliance has been in the process of marshaling assets and paying its liabilities for the past 12 years through a court-appointed Liquidator, namely the Insurance Commissioner of Pennsylvania.

Recently, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that Illinois mortgages entered prior to the amendment of 765 ILCS 5/11 need not strictly conform to the form presented in the statute. In re Crane, --- F.3d ---, 2013 WL 6731850 (7th Cir. Dec. 23, 2013). However, the court’s decision in Crane, considered as a whole, serves as a reminder to secured lenders to closely examine the contents of their mortgages and the requirements of applicable state law.

“You cannot properly appraise the real seriousness of that situation unless you are right there in the city. Everything that frugal men and women put aside for years to save for old age, to get security for themselves –– every¬thing that they put aside to make the lot of their children a better one than their own, is now likely to be swept away. There is only one way that you can lighten the load of the municipality and that is to take its debt service off for the time being. Specifically, so that you will understand it, what is it in the city of Detroit?

Last week’s ruling by

In an opinion that will have a significant impact on the viability of debt for debt exchanges and out of court restructurings, Judge Martin Glenn of the U.S.

The Chapter 9 bankruptcy case of Stockton, California has come to an unexpectedly quick and consensual resolution.

The Supreme Court of the United States denied a petition for writ of certiorari of the debtor, Castleton Plaza, LP, in Castleton Plaza, LP v. EL-SNPR Notes Holdings, LLC, Case No. 12-1422, meaning the prior opinion from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in In the Matter of Castleton Plaza, LP, 707 F.3d 821 (7th Cir. 2013), remains intact, protecting creditors who are faced with being shortchanged by a reorganization plan proposed by a debtor that attempts to transfer the future ownership of the debtor to an insider without first putting the ownership stake up for auction.

Many commentators have remarked that a “new normal” has evolved for Chapter 11 proceedings, wherein the major constituents negotiate the salient terms and exit strategy of the debtor’s restructuring prior to the filing of the bankruptcy petition, generally leading to shorter, less litigious cases.