There has been much discussion in the media in the past year about the massive amount of professional fees that have been wracked up during the City of Detroit's Chapter 9 bankruptcy. There is always great interest - and debate - about such fees due to the nature of the process: insolvent individuals or companies with no place left to turn file for bankruptcy, creditors take a "haircut" on their claims, and the lawyers get paid. Or so the story goes. As with any complex process, though, there is plenty of nuance that gets lost in the wash, and often is more to the story.

On June 25, 2014, the United States Supreme Court ruled that cloud-based television-streaming service, Aereo, violated U.S. copyright law and its subsequent Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing has come to a dramatic conclusion. We have followed this case throughout its lifecycle, and updated this blog with posts like this one to keep you up-to-date on its implications for copyright and telecommunications regulations.

A confluence of factors, including high debt, spiraling pension obligations, and lower sales and property tax revenues, has forced more municipalities to face insolvency than any time since the 1930s. The two largest municipal bankruptcies in history — Jefferson County, Ala., and Detroit, Mich. — recently ended. With the economy improving, we may never see the wave of municipal bankruptcies some commentators predicted.

On June 9, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court issued the latest installmentin the jurisdictional saga of bankruptcy courts. As the highly anticipatedsequel to Stern v.

Generally, license agreements are “executory contracts” in bankruptcy. Executory means performance is due from both sides. When a party to an executory contract becomes a debtor in bankruptcy, it may either reject or assume the contract. However, non-debtor parties (or “counterparties”) enjoy some protections, especially when the contract is a license agreement for intellectual property.

The basics.