When a debtor pays the market cost for goods and services provided to it by third-party vendors, these payments normally cannot be recovered as fraudulent transfers in the U.S. That is because the debtor receives reasonably equivalent value for the payments to its vendors and because the unsuspecting vendors can assert a good faith defense based on the value provided.

First and foremost here at the Drug and Device Law Blog, we like good, strong defense decisions.  If those decisions contain lessons (or reminders) for our everyday practice – so much the better.  That’s why we’ve blogged about cases that let us remind you to check publicly available information about plaintiffs, make sure the plaintiff was alive when she filed suit, and search bankruptcy filings to see if plaintiff disclosed her lawsuit.  We

The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on June 2, 2010, sitting en banc, overruled its own precedential holding in Avellino & Beines v. M. Frenville Co. (Frenville), 744 F.2d 332 (3d Cir. 1984), to hold that in the context of asbestos-related tort claims, a “claim” under the Bankruptcy Code arises when an individual is exposed pre-petition to a product giving rise to an injury rather than when the injury manifests itself. JED-WEN, Inc. v. Van Brunt (In re Grossman’s), No. 1563, slip op. at 18 (3d Cir. June 2, 2010).

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on March 17, 2010 held that foreign representatives appointed in a foreign insolvency proceed-ing have the authority to bring a foreign law based avoidance action in an ancillary bankruptcy proceeding commenced under Chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code, reversing the lower court opinions.