In U.S. Bank N.A. v. Village at Lakeridge, LLC, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an important decision on standards of appellate review, holding that appellate courts should review a bankruptcy court’s determination of whether a particular creditor is a “nonstatutory insider” for purposes of the Bankruptcy Code under the highly deferential “clearly erroneous” standard of review.

Reprinted with permission of the American Bankruptcy Institute Law Review.  Originally published at 26 Amer. Bankr. Inst. L. Rev. 115 (2018).

Fraudulent conveyance litigation arising from failed leveraged buyout transactions is frequently pursued in bankruptcy proceedings as the sole source of recovery for creditors. Targets of these actions typically include those parties who received the proceeds generated by the LBO, including the debtor’s former shareholders.

As summarized in the March 2018 issue of the American Bankruptcy Institute Journal, ABI’s Consumer Bankruptcy Committee has recently issued several recommendations and made several observations regarding the treatment of student loans under the Bankruptcy Code, codified in Title 11 of the United States Code.

Client Alert

Section 365(a) of the Bankruptcy Code is a powerful tool which enables a debtor to reject certain contracts it finds unnecessary or burdensome to its reorganization.

Continuing low interest rates and generally improved economic conditions in the U.S. and worldwide during 2017 have reduced financial distress and the need for business bankruptcies in most sectors. However, out-of-court financial restructurings and Chapter 11 bankruptcies will continue in 2018 due to significant market changes in the energy, retail and health care industries that have developed over the past several years.

WTE-S&S AG Enters., LLC v. GHD, Inc., 2017 Bankr. LEXIS 2343 (Bankr. N. D. Ill. August 18, 2017)

On September 18, in an en banc review, the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit overruled, in part, seminal casesBarger v. City of Cartersville, 348 F.3d 1289 (11th Cir. 2003) and Burnes v. Pemco Aeroplex, Inc., 291 F.3d 1282 (11th Cir. 2002), adopting a totality-of-the-circumstances analysis when facing questions of judicial estoppel.

On August 10, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court rescinded the grant of certiorari in PEM Entities LLC v. Levin on the grounds that review had been “improvidently granted.” The case seemingly provided a perfect vehicle to resolve the circuit split on whether federal or state law governs debt recharacterization in bankruptcy, and less than two months after the Court first agreed to hear the case, its dismissal came as a surprise.