Securities Alert February 1, 2016 E&P Restructurings: Focus on Uptiering Transactions By: Jennifer Wisinski, Paul Amiel, Bill Nelson and Kristina Trauger Times are tough, very tough, for many mid-cap and small-cap exploration and production (“E&P”) companies. Crude oil prices have fallen from more than $100/barrel in July 2014 to a twelve-year low of less than $30/barrel in January 2016. Natural gas prices are at a three-year low. The growing consensus is that depressed prices will experience a slow recovery that may continue into the 2020s.
Sophisticated real estate lenders spend significant amounts of time and energy attempting to insulate themselves from potential bankruptcy filings by their borrowers. A primary reason, which many an experienced real estate lender has found out the hard way, is the risk that a debtor in bankruptcy may “cram down” a plan of reorganization over its lender’s objection. Under a typical cramdown plan, a debtor may stretch out payments to its secured creditor for several years and attempt to replace its negotiated interest rate with a new, below- market rate of interest.
A recent decision by a New Jersey bankruptcy court scrambles the law regarding rejected trademark licenses.1 Crumbs was a multi-location bakery that also licensed its trademarks and trade secrets to third parties. In July of 2014 Crumbs filed a Chapter 11 reorganization case and in August of 2014 the court entered an order selling substantially all of the assets of Crumbs to LFAC2 free and clear of liens, claims, encumbrances, and interests.
In a case that should cause lenders heartburn, the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina recently ruled that common provisions in a Chapter 11 plan prevented the debtor’s lender from executing on a judgment against the non-debtor owner of the debtor.1 Biltmore is a corporation2 that operates manufactured home parks and sells and rents manufactured homes. McGee is the president and controlling shareholder of Biltmore. Biltmore filed Chapter 11 in January of 2011, and TD Bank was Biltmore’s largest secured creditor.
On December 8, 2014, the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI) Commission to Study the Reform of Chapter 11 published a 400-page report containing far-reaching recommendations. The report is the result of a three-year study process undertaken by a number of leading insolvency and restructuring practitioners charged by ABI with evaluating the U.S.
In Cortlandt St. Recovery Corp. v Hellas Telecom., S.A.R.L., 2014 NY Slip Op 24268 (Sup. Ct., N.Y. County 2014), the Supreme Court of the State of New York ruled on two important issues related to the right to sue for recovery with respect to notes issued under indentures. First, the court held that assignments of a right of collection, but not title to the claims or the note itself, are insufficient as a matter of New York law to confer standing upon an assignee to sue for recovery on a defaulted note.
On August 26, 2014, Judge Robert D. Drain of the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York issued a bench ruling in In re MPM Silicones, LLC, Case No. 14-22503 (RDD), on several aspects of the plan of reorganization filed by debtor Momentive Performance Materials, Inc., a specialty chemicals manufacturing company, and its affiliated debtors.
On August 15, 2014, the Eleventh Circuit entered a Memorandum Opinion in the Wortley v. Chrispus Venture Capital, LLC case (In re Global Energies, LLC, “Global”)1 unwinding a section 363 sale order entered in 2010 by the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida based on a finding of bad faith in the filing of an involuntary bankruptcy case in 2010.
On September 3, 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit entered an opinion vacating various orders of the United States Bankruptcy Court and District Court for the Southern District of Texas (the “Bankruptcy Court” and the “District Court”) in the bankruptcy cases of TMT Procurement Corporation and its affiliated debtors (the “Debtors”), including a final order approving the Debtors’ post-petition debtor in possession financing (the “DIP Order”) with Macqua
On June 20, 2014, the Texas Supreme Court issued its opinion in Ritchie v. Rupe, 2014 Tex. LEXIS 500 (Tex. 2014). In Ritchie, a minority shareholder in a closely held corporation attempted to force the majority shareholders to buy-out the minority shareholder’s interest in the corporation by bringing a claim of shareholder oppression under § 11.404 of the Texas Business Organizations Code (TBOC), the Texas receivership statute.