The recent decision from the United States Supreme Court in Lamar, Archer & Cofrin, LLP v. Appling (“Lamar”), further restricts a creditor’s ability to pursue future recovery on its debt through a nondischargeability action in a debtor’s bankruptcy. On June 4, 2018, the Court ruled in Lamar that a debtor’s false statement about a single asset must be in writing before the creditor’s debt can be excepted as nondischargeable in bankruptcy.
Just last month, the Bankruptcy Cave reported upon a Southern District of Texas case in which a debtor was denied discharge of a debt owed to an old (and likely former!?!) friend from church who had been required to pay off a student loan made to the debtor which the friend had guaranteed. Today we report another case involving friends and family and non-dischargeable student debt from the U.S.
Garrison Keillor once said, “Sometimes I look reality straight in the eye and deny it.”[1] Being that the case arose in Minnesota, perhaps Circuit Judge Michael Melloy channeled Keillor, one of that state’s great humorists, when he authored the opinion in The Official Commit
In In re Palmaz Scientific Inc., the bankruptcy court for the Western District of Texas determined that a confirmed plan of reorganization would not stop a group of investors from pursuing direct (non-derivative) claims against directors and officers of the debtor companies because plan injunction language only covered claims against the debtors. 2018 WL 1036780, at *5 (Bankr. W.D.
Following a number of corporate governance failures in situations of insolvency, the Government has published a consultation paper (located here) aimed at cracking down on directors and employers behaving irresponsibly.
Providing an exception to the axiom that no good deed goes unpunished, a Texas bankruptcy court recently declared nondischargeable a debt owed to a guarantor who had been forced to pay the debtor’s defaulted student loan.
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In Wright (and another) (as joint liquidators of SHB Realisations Ltd (formerly BHS Ltd) (in liquidation)) v Prudential Assurance Company Ltd, the court held that, when the BHS CVA terminated, the landlord was entitled to claim the full rent due under its lease. With more recent retail CVAs seeking to push the envelope even further, is the continued compromise of landlord creditors post-CVA the next issue to be tested in the courts?
In the typical day-to-day experience in bankruptcy proceedings, the debtor’s ability to assume or reject executory contracts and leases under Section 365 of the Bankruptcy Code is seen from the sometimes-unfortunate perspective of the creditor.
Last April, we updated you that the Supreme Court had granted review of In re The Village at Lakeridge, LLC, 814 F.3d 993 (9th Cir. 2016). Our most recent post is here.
Happy 2018! We at The Bankruptcy Cave have been itching to write about the Cherry Growers Chapter 11 case - which really is ground-breaking - but the holidays, life, and yes, work for clients too, all just got in the way. But with each passing week, the case stayed on our minds. So now that time permits, here is the writeup - and see below for the remarkable significance of the case.