Following up on our coverage in the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that a debtor in a Chapter 7 case cannot ‘strip off’ or void a wholly unsecured junior mortgage under section 506(d) of the Bankruptcy Code, I had the opportunity to discuss the ruling with Colin O’Keefe of LXBN TV.
This morning, the United States Supreme Court ruled that debtors in Chapter 7 bankruptcy cases cannot “strip off,” or completely void, junior mortgages that—based on the value of the property and the amount of claims secured by senior mortgages—are completely underwater.
Timely proof of claim filings by secured creditors have “been a thorn in the side of many Chapter 13 cases involving secured creditors,” according to Judge Wood in In re Pajian. However, a recent Seventh Circuit decision may cause the industry to revise their current process for proof of claim filings. Bankruptcy Rule 3002(c) requires creditors to file proofs of claim within 90 days of the date set for the meeting of creditors. Bankruptcy courts have come to conflicting conclusions on whether Rule 3002(c)’s deadline applies to all creditors or merely unsecured ones.
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.
The Supreme Court handed down an important judgement last week in the case of BNY Corporate Trustee Services Limited v Eurosail - UK 2007 - 3BL PLC ("the Eurosail Case"), which needs to be considered by anyone who is a party to a contract which contains events of default relating to the insolvency of a party to that contract.
Background
On 8 March 2013 the Insolvency Service released details of a director's disqualification undertaking given by a John Boyd Blackwood, a Director of a rural business in Midlothian. He had given the undertaking not to act as a director of a limited company from 15 March 2013 for five years.
Matthew Purdon Henderson v. Foxworth Investments Limited and 3052775 Nova Scotia Limited
Inner House case of some complexity in which the Liquidator of the Letham Grange Development Company sought reduction of a security over the Letham Grange resort near Arbroath. The case involves a number of companies all controlled by a Mr Liu and his family.
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.
It is fairly common for solicitors to act for both the petitioning creditor in an insolvency as well as for the insolvency practitioner appointed as liquidator. Of course, there is always the potential for a conflict of interest to arise and it can be tricky for solicitors, once involved, to be objective and determine when it is appropriate to withdraw from acting.