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When the debt owed by a debtor is cancelled or forgiven, the debtor generally has cancellation of indebtedness (COD) income. COD income is generally includable in gross income, but may be excluded under section 108 of the Internal Revenue Code in some instances. A statutory exclusion exists for COD income that arises in a title 11 bankruptcy case or when the taxpayer is insolvent. Final regulations were issued recently that apply these exclusions to a grantor trust or a disregarded entity (DRE).

In recent years, constructively fraudulent transfer claims asserted in bankruptcy cases, especially those arising from LBOs and similar shareholder transactions, have hit a major road block.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware recently issued an opinion that addresses, among other issues, the question of whether section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code preempts certain fraudulent transfer avoidance actions brought under state law. In re Physiotherapy Holdings Inc., No. 15-51238 (Bankr. D. Del. June 20, 2016).

A March 8 2016 decision of the influential Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York has attracted attention from – and caused concern for – owners of pipelines and other midstream assets, as well as lenders to midstream and upstream lenders across the United States.

Facts

The issue of whether gathering agreements are subject to rejection in bankruptcy as executory contracts and whether certain provisions of those agreements run with the land and survive rejection will impact ongoing bankruptcy proceedings of producers, as well as renegotiations of existing gathering agreements.

Both landlords and tenants are well served to begin discussing exclusives early in the lease negotiations.

In re RML Dev., Inc., 528 B.R. 150 (Bankr. W.D. Tenn. 2014) –

A mortgagee sought to modify a sale order to (1) modify the bid procedures and (2) confirm that it had a right to credit bid.

In re Walker, 526 B.R. 187 (E.D. La. 2015) –

The bankruptcy court (1) denied a mortgage lender’s request to file a late amendment to a proof of claim that had been filed on its behalf by the debtor and (2) confirmed the debtor’s proposed plan over the mortgagee’s objection that the plan payments were not sufficient to cure the actual arrearage. The lender appealed to the district court.