Many start-up companies backed by venture capital financing, especially those still in the development phase or which otherwise are not cash flow breakeven, at some point may face the prospect of running out of cash. Although many will timely close another round of financing, others may not. This post focuses on options available to companies when investors have decided not to fund and the company needs to consider a wind down.

For a distressed company running low on capital, an investment from insiders may represent a last best hope for survival. Insiders may be willing to risk throwing good money after bad for a chance to save the company even when any third party would stay safely away. Insiders  of a failing company may also have an ulterior motive for making an eleventh hour capital infusion, as they may use their control over a distressed company to enhance their position relative to the company’s other creditors. The line between a good faith rescue and bad faith self-dealing is often a hazy one.

In Venture Bank v. Lapides, 800 F.3d 442 (8th Cir. 2015), the Eighth Circuit found that a bank could not recover from its borrower and, in fact, had violated the post-discharge injunction by relying on change in terms agreements which were ineffective to reaffirm a debt discharged in the borrower’s Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Many creditors (including lenders) have learned the difficult lesson that payments received from a debtor within the 90-day period preceding a bankruptcy filing may be subject to refund as a preferential transfer. Many creditors also know that one of the defenses to a preferential transfer claim is what is referred to as an "ordinary course of business" defense, which excludes payments that are made within the ordinary course of dealing with the creditor and that are consistent with the ordinary practice in the industry.

What better time than the holiday season to discuss “gifting” in the context of chapter 11 cases.  “Gifting” commonly refers to the situation where a senior creditor pays (or allocates a portion of its collateral for the benefit of) one or more junior claimholders.  Gifting is often employed as a tool to resolve the opposition of a junior class of creditors, who are typically out-of-the-money, to the manner in which the bankruptcy case is being administered.  For instance, creditors’ committees may seek gifts from senior creditors to guarantee a recovery for general unsecured

A decision last month by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Hampshire serves as a good reminder that, although helpful, Bankruptcy Code Section 365(n)’s protection for intellectual property licenseesdefinitely has its limits.

The Federal Reserve Board approved a final rule specifying its procedures for emergency lendingunder Section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act.  Since the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010, the Board’s authority to engage in emergency lending has been limited to programs and facilities with “broad-based eligibility” that have been established with the approval

The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently issued a decision which may give a trump card to fraudulent transfer defendants seeking to use the “good faith” defense under the Bankruptcy Code’s recovery provision. This defense, set forth in section 550(b)(1), provides that a trustee may not recover a voidable transfer from “a transferee that takes for value, including satisfaction or securing of a present or antecedent debt, in good faith, and without knowledge of the voidablity of the transfer avoided[.]” (emphasis added).

Almost every year, changes are made to the set of rules that govern how bankruptcy cases are managed — the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure. The changes address issues identified by an Advisory Committee made up of federal judges, bankruptcy attorneys, and others. Often there are revisions to the official bankruptcy forms as well.

In Jubber v. SMC Electrical Products, Inc. et al. (In re C.W. Mining Co.), Case No. 13-4175 (Aug. 10, 2015), the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed that a single payment made by a debtor within the 90-day preference period to a seller, with whom the debtor had never done business, may satisfy the elements to be a payment in the “ordinary course” and, thus, not subject to a preference claim by the trustee.