In Quadrant Structured Products Co. v. Vertin, C.A. No. 6990-VCL, 2014 Del. Ch. LEXIS 193 (Del. Ch. Oct. 1, 2014), the Delaware Court of Chancery held that when creditors of insolvent firms assert derivative claims, they need not meet the contemporaneous ownership requirement applied to stockholder-plaintiffs.

On October 1, a bankruptcy judge ruled that the pension agreement between Stockton, California and Calpers, California’s massive state-run pension fund for public employees, is an executory contract that can be rejected in bankruptcy. Judge Christopher Klein of the Eastern District of California found that California laws designed to protect Calpers from municipal bankruptcies could not be enforced once a city entered bankruptcy.

On Monday, October 6, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order denying the petition for a writ of certiorari in the Jaffe v. Samsung case, also known as the Qimonda case.

Section 503(b)(9) of the Bankruptcy Code provides creditors with an administrative expense priority claim for value of goods that were received by the debtor in the ordinary course within the 20 days prior to the bankruptcy filing Because section 503(b)(9) affords administrative priority status to an otherwise unsecured prepetition claim, it is strictly construed by courts.  Nowhere was this more apparent than in the bankruptcy court’s recent decision in 

In a recent decision from the Delaware bankruptcy court, Judge Christopher S. Sontchi joined the debate over the interpretation of section 547(c)(4)(B) of the Bankruptcy Code, which sets forth the new value defense to a preference claim. 

Last year, the 112-year old retailer J.C. Penney was regularly in the news – and it was rarely good.  The stock was in a free-fall, in the process of dropping from about $20 per share in May 2013 to a low of a little more than $6 dollars per share in late October.  Media reports were grim, focusing on the attempt and failure of the former Apple executive Ron Johnson to turn the business around.  But now, as we approach the critical holiday season, J.C.

In connection with a contentious restructuring, Judge Drain of the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, ruled recently that certain lenders to Momentive Performance Materials Inc. (Case No. 14-22503) had no enforceable claim to a so-called “make-whole” premium.   

For some time, there has been a split among the circuit courts as to whether the Bankruptcy Code permits non-consensual releases of non-debtor entities under a plan of reorganization.

A bankruptcy court in Pennsylvania recently held that trade creditors who supplied goods to a debtor prior to its bankruptcy filing were not entitled to administrative priority status under Bankruptcy Code section 503(b)(9) because the goods were “received by the debtor” at the time they were placed on the vessel at the port overseas more than 20 days before the debtor’s bankruptcy filing, although the debtor took possession of the goods within the 20 day period.  In re World Imports, Ltd. — B.R. —-, 2014 WL 2750258 (Bankr. E.D. Pa., June 18, 2014).

Judge Glenn of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York recently granted class claim certification to a group of former MF Global employees seeking payment on account of unpaid accrued vacation time.