Both businesses and individuals have suffered financially throughout 2020 as a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic.

Early evening on February 23, 2021, Belk Inc. and its affiliates (collectively, “Belk”) filed their Chapter 11 bankruptcy petitions in the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas. Less than seventeen hours later, Judge Marvin Isgur confirmed Belk’s pre-packed plan of reorganization. Belk is not the first Chapter 11 bankruptcy case to accomplish plan confirmation within the first twenty-four hours after filing a petition, and it certainly won’t be the last. In 2019, Sungard Availability Services Capital, Inc.

Alerts and Updates

The Court’s decision provides greater certainty for creditors who passively retain estate property that they obtained pre-petition.

Coronavirus continues to have serious financial implications for businesses and this week the wrongful trading provisions have been suspended (for the second time) until 31 April 2020.

The Golden Globe Award-winning Netflix series is not the only ‘Crown’ returning prior to Christmas 2020. HMRC’s preferential creditor status is also being restored on 1 December 2020.

Alerts and Updates

The rule becomes effective one year after it is published in the Federal Register.

On October 30, 2020, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a final rule revising Regulation F, 12 CFR part 1006, which implements the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. 1692, et seq. (FDCPA).

Alerts and Updates

The opinion is significant for a number of reasons, not least of which is that the Bankruptcy Court held that a make-whole premium is not a claim for unmatured interest as the Court of Appeals had intimated.

In In re Smith, (B.A.P. 10th Cir., Aug. 18, 2020), the U.S. Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit recently joined the majority of circuit courts of appeals in finding that a creditor seeking a judgment of nondischargeability must demonstrate that the injury caused by the prepetition debtor was both willful and malicious under Section 523(a)(6) of the Bankruptcy Code.

Factual Background

Alerts and Updates

The Third Circuit’s ruling in In re Tribune provides important insight on what it means for a plan to unfairly discriminate.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Mexican courts were closed for the past few months and only received urgent cases.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on the Mexican economy. As a result, Mexican courts have seen a rise in insolvency cases, which are not as common in Mexico compared to other jurisdictions, such as the United States. The rise of insolvency cases imposes new challenges to Mexican courts and Mexico’s laws.