Having successfully obtained judgment for your client in a case where your firm of solicitors is acting under a conditional fee agreement (CFA), it is only natural that thoughts will turn to the firm’s own impending financial reward. But the terms of a CFA, negotiated at the outset of the case, can prove to be a barrier to their underlying commercial purpose: payment by result.

Section 262(1) of the IA 1986 provides that a debtor, creditor or nominee may apply to the court where: (a) a voluntary arrangement approved by a creditors’ meeting summoned under section 257 unfairly prejudices the interests of a creditor of the debtor, or (b) there has been some material irregularity at or in relation to such a meeting. 

Customer information has become an increasingly valuable business asset.  And, the volume and detail of other available information about consumers has increased along with it, well beyond mere customer names and addresses to preferences, purchasing history, and online activity.  This means that when a business is sold, customer information is often sold along with it.  But careful diligence is required in handling this intangible asset, and the recent settlement in the RadioShack bankruptcy case is instructive.

On December 16, 2014, President Obama signed into law the $1.1 trillion Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2015 (Appropriations Act), which includes some significant changes to the rules governing multiemployer pension plans, as well as a few changes affecting single employer pension plans.

With several billions of dollars ultimately at stake, the Second Circuit has affirmed that Section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code, a safe-harbor protecting certain securities-related payments from bankruptcy “claw backs,” barred Irving Picard, Trustee of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, LLC (“BLMIS”), from asserting all but a limited category of avoidance and recovery claims. In re Bernard L. Madoff Inv. Sec.

The United States District Court in Delaware recently issued a welcome decision for private equity firms whose portfolio companies run afoul of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (the “WARN Act”).  In In re Jevic Holding Corp. (PDF), the Court affirmed a bankruptcy court decision holding that Sun Capital Partners (“Sun”) was not liable for the WARN Act violations of Jevic Transportation Inc.

A recent pair of opinions from New York and Pennsylvania shows the importance of evaluating all parts of director and officer (D&O) insurance coverage, down to each definition.  These cases, one holding for the insured and one for the insurer, demonstrate that a policy’s terms can be absolutely critical if the insured seeks indemnification for defense costs. 

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended (“ERISA”), requires trustees of multiemployer pension and benefit funds to collect contributions required to be made by contributing employers under their collective bargaining agreements (“CBAs”) with the labor union sponsoring the plans. This is not always an easy task—often, an employer is an incorporated entity with limited assets or financial resources to satisfy its contractual obligations.

The Ninth Circuit recently held that an employer who failed to pay $170,045 in withdrawal liability could discharge the liability in bankruptcy. Carpenters Pension Trust Fund v. Moxley, No. 11-16133 (9th Cir. August 20, 2013). In so ruling, the Court rejected the Fund’s argument that unpaid withdrawal liability constituted a plan asset.

Quin v. County of Kauai Dep't. of Transp., 2013 WL 3814916 (9th Cir. 2013)