The Barton doctrine provides that a court-appointed receiver cannot be sued absent “leave of court by which he was appointed.” Barton v. Barbour, 104 U.S. 126, 127 (1881).
Section 548 of the bankruptcy code authorizes a trustee, debtor, or other appropriate party to avoid actual and constructive fraudulent transfers that occurred prepetition. In order to prove that a transfer was an actual fraudulent transfer, the trustee (or another appropriate plaintiff) must prove that the debtor made the transfer “with actual intent to hinder, delay or defraud any entity to which to debtor was or became…indebted.” 11 U.S.C. §548(a)(1)(A).
An appeals court has issued an insightful decision on the availability of damages when an involuntary bankruptcy petition is filed in bad faith. See Stursberg v. Morrison Sund PLLC, No. 23-1186, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 20286 (8th Cir. Aug. 13, 2024).
The decision addresses both the interplay between Bankruptcy Code sections 303 and 305 and federal preemption of state law.
Under federal law, a debtor may be criminally prosecuted for various kinds of misconduct in connection with a bankruptcy case, including concealing assets, falsifying information, embezzlement, or bribery. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 152, 157. The U.S. Trustee, which serves as a watchdog over the bankruptcy process, will refer such cases to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for investigation and prosecution.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently upheld a trial court’s rejection of a borrower’s allegations that a mortgagee and its servicer violated the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act and the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act by allegedly inaccurately reporting her loan as delinquent following the borrower’s successful completion of her bankruptcy plan, allegedly rejecting her subsequent monthly payments, and filing a foreclosure action based on the supposed post-bankruptcy defaults.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently held that the anti-modification provision in the federal Bankruptcy Code applies to loans secured by mixed-use real properties, such as the large parcel at issue here which functioned both for commercial use and as the debtor’s principal residence.
A copy of the opinion in Lee v. U.S. Bank National Association is available at: Link to Opinion.
On 11 June 2024, Mr. Justice Leech handed down a landmark UK judgment relating to wrongful trading and misfeasance against the former directors of the BHS Group of companies (BHS) pursuant to the Insolvency Act 1986 (IA86).
The 533-page judgment saw one of the largest reported wrongful trading awards since the introduction of IA86, as well as a novel claim for “misfeasant trading.”
On 4 March 2024, Mr Justice Richards of the English High Court delivered a judgment (the Judgment) in relation to the sanction of the restructuring plan under Part 26A of the Companies Act 2006 (the Plan) of Project Lietzenburger Straße HoldCo S.à r.l. (the Plan Company). The Judgment required that a new creditors’ meeting of the Plan Company’s senior creditors be convened to vote on an amended Plan.
To modernise the restructuring toolkit available to special administrators, the UK government has introduced changes to the English special administration regime (SAR)1 for distressed water companies. The changes follow reports of significant stress in the water services sector.
New Changes
A look back at bankruptcy trends and litigation in 2023 reveals a spike in bankruptcy filings driven by economic factors and fallout from the pandemic while in upper courts several interesting cases were decided involving proofs of claim, stay violations, and discharge issues.