Last year, Burr & Forman lawyers won a decisive victory in the Eleventh Circuit, in the case of In re Failla, 838 F.3d 1170 (11th Cir. 2016). In Failla, the Eleventh Circuit held that a debtor who files a statement of intention to “surrender” his or her house in bankruptcy may not oppose the secured creditor’s foreclosure proceeding in state court. Failla is a significant victory for secured creditors for two primary reasons. First, the Eleventh Circuit interpreted the meaning of “surrender,” as used in 11 U.S.C.

In Royal Bank of Canada v. Casselman, three motions were brought before the Court. First, a continuation of a motion for approval and directions brought by the receiver. Second, a motion to allow counsel for the debtor to withdraw as lawyer of record. Third, a motion by the Sexton Group Ltd.

Signed, sealed, delivered, but am I yours? Apparently not, according to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, at least in the context of allowed administrative expense claims under Section 503(b)(9) of the Bankruptcy Code.1 The Third Circuit recently considered and ruled in a case as to when goods are deemed “received” for the purposes of determining whether a creditor may recover the value of the goods as an allowed administrative expense claim under the Bankruptcy Code.

​The Ontario Court of Appeal released its much anticipated decision on the appeals taken from the trial decision of Justice McEwen in Trillium Motor World Ltd. v. Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP et al.

​In the recent unreported decision, Bank of Nova Scotia et al v. Virginia Hills Oil Corp. et al, File No. 1701-02184, the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench held that not all municipal property tax claims are priority secured claims in an insolvency.

In a recent case1 out of the bankruptcy court for the Southern District of Florida (the “Court”), a secured creditor moved to dismiss a debtor’s bankruptcy case “for cause” based on the debtor’s bad faith filing.2 The debtor owned certain commercial real estate in south Florida (the “Commercial Property”) and leased space to various tenants, one of which had recently applied for both state and federal licenses to sell medical marijuana.3 The secured creditor had a first-position mortgage on the Commercial Property.4 After a decade-long lending relationship soured, the debtor initiated a len

In a 5-3 decision written by Justice Stephen G.

In Midland Funding, LLC v. Johnson, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a debt collector does not run afoul of the FDCPA by filing a proof of claim in bankruptcy on a stale debt.

Recently, the Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Alabama joined with a number of courts in finding that a debtor's ability to sell their assets free and clear of any "interests" in property encompassed the right to purge the assets of a state labor department's right to transfer a company's unemployment experience rating to a purchaser of the company's assets.[1]

​On April 24, 2017, the Alberta Court of Appeal issued a decision in Orphan Well Association v Grant Thornton Limited, 2017 ABCA 124. The decision is arguably the past year’s most hotly anticipated and discussed decision in Alberta, despite involving bankruptcy proceedings of a relatively small junior oil and gas company. The Court of Appeal, in a 2-1 split, upheld the trial judge’s decision that a receiver can disclaim or renounce uneconomic assets that are subject to costly environmental liabilities.