Over the past 15 years or so, one of the most commonly recurring themes in my practice has been advising both insolvency practitioners and directors on the prospects of legal proceedings being pursued for breach of director duties and/or wrongful trading. Very often the two claims are put together for the purposes of an actual or threatened claim, and very often sitting behind the scenes as well is a possible investigation and/or claim that one or more directors should be disqualified.

On May 4, 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States issued an opinion regarding a Chapter 13 bankruptcy case from the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (the “First Circuit”).1 The question on appeal was whether debtor Louis Bullard (“Bullard”) could immediately appeal the bankruptcy court’s order denying confirmation of his proposed Chapter 13 payment plan (the “Plan”).2 The Court held that denial of confirmation of a debtor’s plan is not a final, appealable order.3  

Case Background

Most people who deal in property regularly will be very aware of the risk of acquiring a property for less than its true value if it turns out that the seller falls into some sort of insolvent procedure after the sale. This “undervalue” concern will often be front of mind if it is known that the seller is in a distressed situation, e.g. their lender is threatening to take possession. In some cases the ‘look back period’ for an insolvency practitioner taking office over an insolvent seller’s affairs can be as long as 5 years.

© 2015 Hunton & Williams LLP 1 May 2015 Oak Rock Financial District Court Addresses the Applicable Legal Standard for True Participation Agreements The United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York recently applied two tests, the True Participation Test and the Disguised Loan Test, to determine whether agreements were true participation agreements or disguised loans.1 In addition, the District Court noted that the most important question in such a determination is the risk of loss allocation in the transaction, and that if an alleged participant is not subject to the

In Quadrant Structured Products Company, Ltd. v. Vertin, the Delaware Court of Chancery made two key rulings concerning the rights of creditors to bring derivative lawsuits against corporate directors.¹  First,  the court held that there is no continuous insolvency requirement during the pendency of the lawsuit.

In two recent cases, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York has indicated that Section 316(b) of Trust Indenture Act of 19391 (the “TIA”) requires unanimous consent for out-of- court restructurings that impair bondholders’ practical ability to receive payments, even if the bondholders’ technical, legal ability to receive payments remains intact.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently entered an order confirming that when a fraudulent transfer defendant is able to establish a defense pursuant to 11 U.S.C.

On November 5, 2014, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Virginia issued a noteworthy opinion that runs counter to what many Virginia law practitioners assume to be the common law in Virginia – i.e., that a manager of a Virginia limited liability company owes a fiduciary duty of loyalty to the limited liability company.

The United States District Court for the District of Delaware recently entered a Memorandum Opinion (the “District Court Opinion”) concerning the constitutional sufficiency of the publication of the bar date notice in the New Century bankruptcy as it applies to unknown creditors.1 The District Court vacated the Bankruptcy Court’s August 30, 2013,order (the “Constructive Notice Order”), which had approved the constitutional sufficiency of notice to unknown creditors by publication in The Wall Street Journal and the Orange County Register.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (the “Eleventh Circuit”) has become the first circuit court to extend sections 1692e and 1692f of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”) to proofs of claim filed in a bankruptcy case, ruling that a debt collector is prohibited from filing a proof of claim on debt that is barred by the applicable state statute of limitation. In Crawford v. LVNV Funding, LLC, et al.