There are many reasons to mandate mediation in certain circumstances.

• One is to improve the quality of justice.
• Another is to manage an expanding docket and burgeoning caseload.
• A third is to create a mediation culture where none currently exists.

There are two ways to mandate mediation:

The history of bankruptcy in these United States teaches this:

• bankruptcy laws can provide an efficient and effective solution for a great variety of financial problems.

But bankruptcy laws, in these United States, face significant problems, and their effectiveness is being diminished.

First Problem

Bankruptcy has a fundamental problem: nobody likes it.

Everyone recognizes that bankruptcy laws are a necessity in our market economy. And bankruptcy laws are even founded upon a provision of the U.S. Constitution:

Every now and then, a bankruptcy ruling elicits an “Oh, no!” response from just about everyone.

And then, subsequent case law starts rejecting and/or chipping-away at that “On, no!” ruling.

We have such an “Oh, no!” situation going on right now on a Subchapter V debt-limit issue.

New Rejecting/Chipping-Away Opinion

I’m reading a U.S. circuit court’s recent bankruptcy opinion that cites Stern v. Marshall, 564 U.S. 462 (2011). I’m startled by that and blurt out (to myself), “Who cites Stern anymore?!” and “Is Stern still a thing?!” and “I thought Stern has been narrowed to nearly nothing?!”

As the festive season approaches, it is time to take stock of the three 2023 most important decisions of the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) on claw-back issues in insolvency.

What creditor would ever want to be an involuntary bankruptcy petitioner under these statements of facts and law:

Oral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court in Harrington v. Purdue Pharma L.P. happened on December 4, 2023. Here is a link to the official transcript of such arguments.

My Impression

I’ve read that transcript—and still don’t know what the Court is going to do.

But based on the comments/questions of the justices (which are summarized and compiled below), I do have one impression:

As the nights draw in and the new year approaches, we take stock of the state of play for European restructuring and look ahead at potential trends for 2024.

Completion of legal reforms

Desperate people do desperate things. And desperation leads even good people astray.

So it is in the world of financial stress. Desperate people do desperate things: like providing sloppy financial statements to creditors, failing to assure that all collateral proceeds go to the proper place, and fudging on the truth here-and-there.

On 30 October 2023, HM Treasury (HMT) published three documents setting out how the UK government plans to regulate cryptoassets going forward: