Many experienced business people are now familiar with the process by which their valid and successful debt collection efforts result in liability under the preference provisions of the Bankruptcy Code.

New amendments to Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 2019 were recently adopted in an attempt to clarify requirements surrounding file 2019 statements in Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases.

Prior to the amendments, which were adopted Dec. 1, 2011, Rule 2019 was often applied in an inconsistent haphazard manner resulting in a great deal of uncertainty regarding who was required to file the statement and under what circumstances that statement was required to be filed.  

The Original Rule 2019

If you are a creditor of a Delaware limited liability company and wish to pursue derivative claims on behalf of an insolvent company against the company’s present or former managers based on breaches of fiduciary duties, you may be out of luck. The Delaware Supreme Court recently decided in CML V LLC v. Bax, 2011 Del. LEXIS 480 (Sept. 2, 2011), that creditors’ rights against limited liability companies differ from those against corporations.

In the last several months, there have been some significant legal developments that could impact acquisition finance. This article will survey some of the more notable ones.

In a case with implications for buyers of assets in a bankruptcy court-ordered sale under section 363(b) of the Bankruptcy Code, the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York recently issued a decision limiting the ability of manufacturers that are debtors in a bankruptcy case to sell assets free and clear of future liabilities.

It’s been quite a week for important cases on TUPE and its operation in relation to administrations. The Court of Appeal has delivered two judgments which are of considerable importance for those contemplating and structuring transactions out of administration.

The key points to note are that:

Judge James M. Peck of the United States Bank-ruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York on December 8, 2011 issued an opinion on a motion of the Lehman Brothers Inc. (“LBI”) trustee (“Trustee”) to confirm his determination that certain claims relating to settled on delivery-versus-payment “to be announced” (“TBA”) contracts do not qualify as customer claims against the LBI estate and therefore are not entitled to Securities Investor Protection Act (“SIPA”) coverage.

On 31 October 2011, MF Global UK Limited, an insolvent investment broker, became the first investment firm to enter the special administration regime (the “SAR”) created by the Investment Bank Special Administration Regulations 2011 (SI 2011/245).

The SAR was adopted in February 2011 following the collapse of Lehman Brothers and has the advantage over ordinary corporate administration in that it sets special objectives for the administrator and this is the first time the SAR has been used. The SAR sets three objectives for a special administrator:

The respected Financial Markets Law Committee sponsored by the Bank of England has published a paper, dated October 2011, containing an analysis of legal uncertainty in the FSA’s Client Assets Sourcebook (CASS) and arising from judicial decisions relating to the administration of Lehman Brothers International (Europe).

In a case of first impression, In re Qimonda AG, the Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (the “Bankruptcy Court”) found that the protections of section 365(n) of the Bankruptcy Code are available to licensees of U.S. patents in a chapter 15 case even when these protections are not available under the foreign law applicable to the foreign debtor.

We write to provide an important update concerning Executive Life Insurance Company of New York (“ELNY”).