The Ninth Circuit recently ruled that a Chapter 11 debtor could not avoid the payment of default interest under a promissory note as a condition to curing and reinstating such promissory note under a Chapter 11 plan. In Pacifica L 51 LLC v. New Investments Inc. (In re New Investments, Inc.), 840 F.3d 1137 (9th Cir. 2016), the Ninth Circuit held that its prior rule of allowing a curing debtor to avoid a contractual post-default interest rate in a loan agreement—as decided in Great Western Bank & Trust v.

The First Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel recently issued a decision recognizing the rights of trademark licensees when the trademark’s owner files for bankruptcy.

Attributable to Amanda Remus, spokeswoman for Irving H. Picard, SIPA Trustee for the liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC (BLMIS) and his counsel:

The United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York today approved the SIPA Trustee's request for an allocation of approximately $342 million in recoveries to the BLMIS Customer Fund and has authorized the SIPA Trustee to proceed with the eighth pro rata interim distribution from the Customer Fund to BLMIS customers with allowed claims.

On November 16, 2016, the Ontario Ministry of Government and Consumer Services (“MGCS”) posted the Fall 2016 report (the “Report”)[1] of the Business Law Advisory Council (the ”Council”), which was formed by the MGCS in March 2016 to put forward recommendations for modernizing Ontario’s corporate and commercial statutes.

The tension between a trustee seeking to facilitate a proposal for the benefit of all creditors and a single creditor being forced to release its rights for the “greater good” was front and center in a recent case before the Supreme Court of British Columbia.

Puerto Rico’s financial woes have recently been front and center in financial news. Although a recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court curtailed Puerto Rico’s ability to enact its own legislation to address its debt situation, late last month President Obama signed into law legislation designed to allow Puerto Rico to restructure its vast public debt, giving new hope to the Commonwealth’s financially strapped public utilities.

A recent decision of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice serves as a reminder for secured lenders of the importance of perfecting a security interest by registration. Absent perfection, collateral is at risk of seizure by judgment creditors of the borrower. Perfection, however, insures that a creditor has a priority interest in collateral over any subsequent judgment creditor. The decision also shows the importance to vendors of conducting continuous diligence on customers when credit is being extended on a regular basis.

Backround

On October 7, 2015, the British Columbia Court of Appeal reversed the Supreme Court of British Columbia's decision in Barafield Realty Ltd. v. Just Energy (B.C.) Limited Partnership ["Barafield Realty"].¹ In July of 2014, we wrote the attached bulletin http://www.mcmillan.ca/Assigning-contracts-in-Canadian-insolvency-proceedings on the lower court decision.

As discussed in our May 2016 bulletin, New Rules for Asset Sales by Insolvent Producers (at least for now), the decision of the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta in Re Redwater Energy Corporation, 2016 ABQB 278 ("Redwater") determined that provisions of the provincial legislation governing the actions of licensees of oil and gas assets did not apply to receivers and trustees in bankruptcy of insolvent companies, given the paramountcy of the Bank

In Alberta, regulations have historically prohibited purchasers of oil and gas assets from cherry picking operating interests in economic properties while leaving behind interests in uneconomic wells. This has had a significant negative impact on the ability of a receiver or trustee to market and sell assets owned by insolvent companies and on the prices those assets are able to attract.