On Wednesday, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals put a nail in the coffin of the attempt by Thelen LLP’s bankruptcy trustee to claw back fees on work that the firm’s former partners took with them to their new firm, Seyfarth Shaw LLP.  Here’s the opinion.

On June 9, 2014, a unanimous Supreme Court issued the latest in a series of key rulings regarding the extent of a bankruptcy court’s constitutional authority.¹ Notably, while Monday’s Executive Benefitsdecision answered one important question arising out of the Court’s 2011 decision in Stern v. Marshall,² it also left the primary question that resulted in a split in the Circuit Courts of Appeals to be decided another day.

The Aftermath of Stern v. Marshall

Would you know what to do if you learned that one of your franchisees had filed for bankruptcy? Perhaps more importantly, would you know what not to do? While each circumstance and franchise agreement is different, there is a general framework for dealing with a franchisee in bankruptcy. Here we’ll introduce some of the issues you are likely to encounter throughout the bankruptcy process.

The Automatic Stay

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently affirmed the bankruptcy court decision in the Qimonda AG chapter 15 bankruptcy case,¹ providing that holders of intellectual property licenses based on U.S. patents are entitled to the special protections contained in 11 U.S.C. § 365(n).² In so doing, the court bolstered the rights of U.S. intellectual property licensees whose agreements might otherwise be vulnerable to termination in a cross-border insolvency proceeding.

Background

In 2010, the Uniform Law Commission promulgated several amendments (Amendments) to Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code (Article 9) designed to address problems that have arisen since revised Article 9 went into effect in 2001. Most, but not all, of the Amendments address the proper way to reflect debtor names on financing statements.

Timing and Enactment

Overview

Overview

In a major victory for secured creditors, the United States Supreme Court, on May 29, 2012, unanimously held that a chapter 11 plan involving a sale of secured property must afford the secured creditor the right to credit bid for the property under section 363(k) of title 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”).¹ In so holding, the Supreme Court resolved the split that had emerged among the United States Circuit Courts of Appeals, as illustrated by the Seventh Circuit’s decision below,² which contrasted with recent decisions from the Third and Fifth Circui

In October 2009, the court overseeing the TOUSA, Inc. bankruptcy cases in the Southern District of Florida (Bankruptcy Court) set off considerable alarm bells throughout the lending community when it unraveled a refinancing transaction as a fraudulent conveyance based upon, in primary part, the fact that certain subsidiaries of TOUSA, Inc. pledged their assets as collateral for a new loan that was used to repay prior debt on which the subsidiaries were not liable, and that was not secured by those subsidiaries’ assets.

Introduction