When a company is facing short term financial difficulties the directors or shareholders may decide to make a loan to the company to pay wages. 

In Harrington v. Simmons (In re Simmons), 513 B.R. 161 (Bankr. D. Mass. 2014), the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Massachusetts considered the U.S. trustee's request that a Chapter 7 debtor be denied a discharge for his failure to maintain adequate financial records or satisfactorily explain the loss of his assets.

Debts claimed in statutory demands must be due and payable to the creditor named in the statutory demand.

When disputing statutory demands it is common for debtor companies to argue an offsetting claim, so as to reduce or extinguish the amount claimed in the statutory demand.

For there to be a valid offsetting claim there must be ‘mutuality’, meaning that the legal capacities in which both the offsetting claim and the statutory demand debt are each claimed and owed must align.

The "American rule" is a well-defined legal principle applied by courts throughout the United States that holds each party to a dispute responsible for paying its own attorney fees. This principle is, however, subject to a number of exceptions that effectively allow a prevailing party to recover its own attorney fees from a losing party. For example, federal and state statutes increasingly authorize a prevailing party to recover costs from its adversary in certain types of actions.

Mortgage lenders should be aware of the New Jersey statute of limitations on mortgage foreclosure complaints. In In re Washington, 2014 Bankr. LEXIS 4649 (Bankr. D.N.J. Nov.

In In re Crumbs Bake Shop, Inc., No. 14-24287 (Bankr. D.N.J., Oct. 31, 2014), Judge Michael B. Kaplan of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey held that trademark licenses may be entitled, under a bankruptcy court's equitable powers, to the protections of Section 365(n) of the United States Bankruptcy Code, 11 U.S.C. § 101 et seq.

Recently, in the case of In re Trump Entertainment Resorts, Bankruptcy No. 14-12103 (Bankr. D. Del. 2014), 2014 Bankr. LEXIS 4439 (Bankr. D. Del. October 20, 2014), the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware addressed the issue of whether a debtor has the authority to reject an expired collective bargaining agreement pursuant to Section 1113 of the Bankruptcy Code.

On April 14, in In re Free Lance-Star Publishing, 512 B.R. 798 (Bankr. E.D. Va. 2014), the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia considered the objection of Chapter 11 debtors to a secured creditor's right to credit bid at a sale of the debtors' assets pursuant to 11 U.S.C. Section 363.

A recent Victorian case has worrying implications for financiers and creditors.

A decision of the Victorian Court of Appeal in Vasudevan v Becon Constructions (Australia) Pty Ltd [2014] VSCA 14 has the potential to significantly broaden the power of a liquidator to attack a company transaction under section 588FDA of the Corporations Act 2001 (Act) where there are ‘indirect benefits’ to a director or close associate of a director of the company.

In the case of United States of America v. Edward P. Bond, No. 12-4803 (2d. Cir. August 13, 2014), the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (the "Second Circuit") issued a decision that could have far-reaching effects on how liquidating chapter 11 bankruptcy cases will be handled in the future.