Northern District of Oklahoma Chief Bankruptcy Judge Terrence L. Michael’s introduction to the opinion in In re Harrison (2013 WL 6859303) serves as a good introduction to this post:
On 1 August 2013, an act amending the Business Continuity Act ("BCA") of 31 January 2009 entered into force.
The new act tackles the most common types of abuse under the Business Continuity Act and aims to reduce the number of bankruptcies following reorganisation governed by the BCA. The basic principles of the Business Continuity Act remain unchanged, however.
One of the ironic issues for failing banks has been the fact that banks that they have had to continue to deal with their borrowers and depositors in the ordinary course of business even though they are already in the queue for resolution by the FDIC. So for example, loans continue to get renewed and documents executed. What happens if you renew a loan shortly before the bank fails, do you have some sort of defense to enforcement of the loan when the successor bank or the FDIC makes demand on you?
In a ground-breaking decision, the Dutch Supreme Court recently found that a foreign bankruptcy trustee may in principle exercise the powers conferred on him under the lex concursus (the law governing the bankruptcy) in the Netherlands as well. Such powers can include the management and disposal of assets located in the Netherlands at the time of the foreign bankruptcy order.
There has recently been a number of successful pre-pack restructurings in the Netherlands. A 'pre-pack' is the term used for the restructuring of a company through a transaction that is prepared as much as possible outside formal insolvency proceedings, and whereby the enterprise survives, but some or all of the company's debt is restructured. The aim of preparing the transaction in advance is to ensure maximum preservation of value. Several structures can be distinguished.
On 13th August 2013, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and attorneys general from six US states and the District of Columbia filed suit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia to block the merger between US Airways and American Airlines. Days before, a group of American Airlines customers filed a claim that the merger would violate Section 7 of the Clayton Act.
A pre-pack is the term used for the restructuring of a company through a transaction that is prepared as much as possible outside of formal insolvency proceedings, and whereby the enterprise survives but some or all of the company's debt is restructured. The aim of preparing the transaction in advance is to ensure the maximum preservation of value. Several structures can be distinguished.
When the Fifth Circuit, in a case of first impression for that circuit and all of its sister circuit, last year ruled in In re Chilton, 11-40377, 2012 WL 762924 (5th Cir. Mar. 12, 2012) that inherited IRAs constituted retirement funds within the “plain meaning” of §522 of the Bankruptcy Code and were thus exempt from the bankruptcy estate, under § 522(d)(12) (the federal exemptions), many thought the issue was settled.