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Mortgage servicers are plagued by their nebulous relationships with the borrowers who discharge their personal liability in bankruptcy. Issues arise when the borrower whose debt has been discharged continues to engage with the mortgage servicer. These activities include making monthly payments and requesting and participating in loss mitigation. There are few, if any, bright line rules regarding this common scenario.

On December 22, 2018, the federal funding for certain agencies lapsed, and the United States government entered into a partial shutdown. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), including the United States Trustee Program (USTP), was one of the agencies that shut down. United States Trustees (“UST”) representing the USTP appear and litigate in a multitude of bankruptcy proceedings. USTs also actively participate in out-of-court settlement discussions, plan negotiations, and the like.

1 2018 GTLAW.COM.AU 2018 NEW IPSO FACTO LAWS WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR YOU? WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR YOU? The Federal Government’s new ipso facto laws, which were introduced by the Treasury Laws Amendment (2017 Enterprise Incentives No. 2) Act 2017 (Cth), impose an automatic stay on the enforcement of ipso facto clauses in certain contracts entered into on or after 1 July 2018. In this insight, we summarise the new laws and take a closer look at how the reforms affect particular types of transactions.

Treasury has released draft regulations and a draft declaration for public consultation. The regulations and declaration support the stay on enforcement of ipso facto clauses against relevant entities. Ipso facto clauses allow parties to enforce a right, and terminate or amend a contract, when their contractual counterparties have entered into formal insolvency, regardless of the counterparties continued performance of their obligations under the contract.

As the effective date for the CFPB’s successor in interest and bankruptcy billing statement requirements quickly approaches, one question we’ve heard multiple times is whether a mortgage servicer is required to know when a confirmed successor in interest is in bankruptcy. The question stems from upcoming provisions in Regulations X and Z that will collectively say, in essence, that a confirmed successor in interest must be treated as if he or she is a borrower for the purposes of the mortgage servicing rules.

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Even if you haven’t purchased any bitcoin, you have likely heard about the cryptocurrency that was approaching $20,000 per coin late last year. The record high was quickly followed by a dramatic fall in value over 16 days in early 2018 — crashing to below $7,000. Since that time, bitcoin has been staging its recovery, and as of this writing, sits at slightly over $9,000 per coin. Not a bad place to be, considering bitcoin’s humble valuation of $.08 per coin back in 2010. It seems that despite its roller coaster persona, bitcoin is here to stay.

Municipal bankruptcies under Chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy Code, 11 U.S.C. §§ 901-946 (Chapter 9), are rare. These cases are often filed to adjust bonded indebtedness and pension obligations. Congressional authorization for Puerto Rico and its instrumentalities to file for bankruptcy under the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) was similarly out of concern for excessive bond debt and pensions.

The Government has released a consultation paper as part of their commitment to ongoing reform of Australia’s corporate insolvency regime.  Phoenix activity refers to both legitimate business rescue activities and serial insolvency to avoid debts.

One overarching certainty of federal debt collection law seems to be prolonged uncertainty over its appropriate scope. Is this scope about to change yet again? One recent bill called the Practice of Law Technical Clarification Act of 2017, H.R. 1849, seeks to do just that.

On October 4, 2017, the CFPB released an interim final rule and a proposed rule to amend certain provisions of its 2016 Mortgage Servicing Final Rule.