The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit recently ruled in the Puerto Rico bankruptcy case that Fifth Amendment takings claims cannot be discharged or impaired by a bankruptcy plan. As a matter of first impression in that circuit, the Court disagreed with the Ninth Circuit and held that former property owners affected by prepetition takings must be paid in full.

In re Fin. Oversight & Mgmt. Bd., 41 F.4th 29 (1st Cir. 2022)

In a recent opinion, the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Maryland dealt with a conflict between the strong presumption in favor of enforcing arbitration agreements and the Bankruptcy Code’s emphasis on centralization of claims. Based on an analysis of the two statutory schemes and their underlying policies and concerns, the Court decided to lift the automatic stay to allow the prepetition arbitration proceeding to go forward with respect to non-core claims.

Background

The application of sovereign immunity principles in bankruptcy cases has vexed the courts for decades. The U.S. Supreme Court’s opinions on the matter have not helped much. Although they have addressed the issue in specific contexts, they have not established clear guidelines that the lower courts may apply more generally. The Third Circuit took a crack at clarifying this muddy but important area of the law in the case of Venoco LLC (with its affiliated debtors, the “Debtors”).

Background

The consequences of an order or judgement being final or interlocutory are enormous. An order from an interlocutory order requires leave since these orders are not appealable as of right. In addition, a failure to obtain leave may result in the issue becoming moot. This is especially so when motions to lift the stay are involved: if the motion is denied and is not immediately appealable, by the time the case is concluded, the issues will most likely be moot.

In Mission Products Holdings, Inc. v. Tempnology, LLC, the U.S. Supreme Court resolved a question that vexed the lower courts and resulted in a circuit split: does the rejection by a debtor-licensor of a trademark license agreement terminate the licensee’s rights under the rejected license?

The Bankruptcy Code allows trustees, as well as debtors-in-possession and in some circumstances creditors’ committees, to set aside and recover certain transfers for the benefit of the bankruptcy estate. The purpose of the avoidance powers is to maximize funds available for creditors and to ensure equality of distribution among creditors’ claims. The avoidance powers are not without bounds, however, as the Code sets forth a number of exceptions — most notably, the so-called “securities contract safe harbor” under Section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code.

In a highly anticipated bankruptcy opinion, the United States Supreme Court, in Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corp., held that courts may not approve structured dismissals providing for distributions that deviate from the priority rules prescribed in the Bankruptcy Code, absent consent of the affected creditors.

In a significant decision that reinforced the U.S. Supreme Court’s prior plurality decision in Marathon, the Court determined that while bankruptcy courts have the statutory authority to hear state-law compulsory counterclaims to a creditor’s proof of claim under section 157(b)(2)(C) of Title 28, Article III of the U.S. Constitution requires such proceedings to be heard by Article III judges where they would not be resolved as part of the claims allowance process.