In an appeal certified directly from the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (the “Bankruptcy Court”) to the Court of Appeals, the Third Circuit issued a ruling upholding Judge Kevin Gross’s decision that a chapter 11 debtor-employer may reject the continuing terms and conditions of a collective bargaining agreement (“CBA”) under 11 U.S.C. § 1113, despite that the CBA expired post-petition.

The Bankruptcy Court’s Decision

Editor’s Note: Our good London colleague Ed Marlow recently published this as a Bryan Cave client advisory.

1 PGDOCS\6505199.2 2015 Georgia Corporation and Business Organization Case Law Developments Michael P. Carey Bryan Cave LLP Fourteenth Floor 1201 West Peachtree Street, N.W. Atlanta, GA 30309 (404) 572-6600 March 22, 2016 This paper is not intended as legal advice for any specific person or circumstance, but rather a general treatment of the topics discussed. The views and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author only and not Bryan Cave LLP. The author would like to thank Tom Richey for his continued support, advice and assistance with this paper.

On 24 March, HMRC published a summary of responses to the December consultation on Company Distributions, together with details of the Government's position on the issues raised. The December consultation was covered in my 3 February blog.

On April 1, a bevy of dollar amounts set forth in the Bankruptcy Code will change. Some of these are quite important to substantive relief, and others are quite important to making sure you don’t look bad in front of the client or your favorite (least favorite?) judge. We have Section 104 of the Bankruptcy Code to thank for this malpractice-inducing enterprise, which we enjoy every three years. See 11 U.S.C. § 104 (a) (“On April 1, 1998, and at each 3-year interval ending on April 1 thereafter, each dollar amount in effect under sections . . . shall be adjusted . . . .”).

Editor’s Note:  Here at The Bankruptcy Cave, we love insolvency stuff; we eat it for breakfast and dream about it at night.  (We are not kidding.)  Sometimes that includes credit-related litigation, and so we keep our pre-trial, trial, and appellate skills honed.  To that end, here is a very helpful cheat sheet we prepared and which we bring with us to every deposition, just in case.  (Your author Leah even got to enjoy a no-show deposition in Chicago last year; she created a perfect record using the below.) 

Including an unsecured creditor  in an agreed payments waterfall does not by itself confer on that unsecured creditor  the benefit of a mortgagee’s usual duties on enforcement of security, or a direct claim against the sale proceeds.

You may recall the holding and analysis of ASARCO [1]/ from Jay’s previous post, here.

Today is the closing date for responses to a Government consultation on the tax treatment of company distributions.  You can read the consultation document here.

The direction of travel, per the consultation, is clear.  Anyone thinking of liquidating their company should consider these new rules carefully.

With the cyclical fluctuation in oil and gas commodity prices, the UKCS has had its fair share of E&P companies going insolvent. As the UKCS matures, the profile of companies that invest in the region is changing. Many smaller parties, potentially with less access to capital, are now building positions.  The commercial exposure is that some companies will not be able to meet cash calls, creating headaches for their co-venturers.