In March 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that a landlord may be liable to a debtor’s bankruptcy estate for the value of a lease the debtor terminated early, holding the termination may be an “avoidable transfer” under the Bankruptcy Code.1 The opinion in Official Comm. of Unsecured Creditors v. T.D. Invs. I, LLP (In re Great Lakes Quick Lube LP)2 reversed the Bankruptcy Court’s ruling, and in doing so perhaps expanded the definition of a “transfer” under the Bankruptcy Code.
Background
Key Points:
Although they should always keep time-frames very much in mind, the decision in BKA Practice Co Pty Ltd gives liquidators greater scope to find all possible time-frames in which they have to work.
Key Points:
Companies that have leasing as a small and irregular part of their overall business still must comply with the PPSA if their interests in leased goods are to be protected.
In 2003, Congress passed the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (the "Act").1 The Act authorized states to create health savings accounts ("HSAs") with taxpreferred treatment to encourage individuals with high-deductible health insurance plans to save for their healthcare expenses.2 Recent data suggests that the popularity of HSA accounts is growing, with one study estimating that the number of HSA accounts rose to 13.8 million in 2014, which is a twenty-nine percent (29%) increase from 2013.
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In some circumstances a plaintiff/claimant can bypass a defendant (even an insolvent one) and seek a declaration against the defendant's insurer.
The High Court has confirmed that, if a defendant is insolvent, the plaintiff may seek a declaration that the defendant's insurer is liable to indemnify the defendant, at least when:
As you may know by now, many of the Official Forms for use in Bankruptcy Courts were replaced with revised, reformatted and renumbered forms that went into effect on December 1, 2015. The changes were made as part of a forms modernization effort that began in 2008 to improve the official bankruptcy forms and the interface between the forms and the courts’ case opening and electronic case management technology.
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A Senate Economics References Committee has recommended that the Commonwealth enact uniform national security of payment legislation, albeit with a target of around 2018 for implementation.
Security of payment (SOP) reform discussion papers were released by the Queensland and New South Wales Governments in the run up to Christmas. That timing happened to coincide with the publication by the Senate Economics References Committee of its report "'I just want to be paid': Insolvency in the Australian Construction Industry".
Cases decided recently in Florida and Illinois call into question one legal rule that some might have thought well-settled: a first-perfected security interest in collateral beats a later-perfected lien creditor's interest in that same collateral. Seems simple enough. Except this rule might not be followed in every State.
In Castellanos v. Midland Funding, LLC, 15-CV-559 (M.D. Fla. Jan. 4, 2016) the United States District Judge John Steele joined with several of his Middle District of Florida colleagues and held that the Bankruptcy Code preempts the FDCPA with respect to filing time-barred proofs of claim.
In Garfield v. Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC, 15-527 (2d Cir. Jan. 4, 2016), the Second Circuit Court of Appeals examined whether a debtor who has been discharged in a bankruptcy can sue in a district court under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”), as opposed to seeking relief in the bankruptcy court.