On August 15, 2014, the Eleventh Circuit entered a Memorandum Opinion in the Wortley v. Chrispus Venture Capital, LLC case (In re Global Energies, LLC, “Global”)¹ unwinding a section 363 sale order entered in 2010 by the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida based on a finding of bad faith in the filing of an involuntary bankruptcy case in 2010.

Malone v. Allstate Indemnity Co.,No. 2:13–CV–00884–WMA, WL 2592352 (N.D. Al. Jun. 10, 2014)

The Northern District of Alabama finds that an insurer did not act in bad faith by denying coverage for damage caused by a house fire where investigators suspected arson, the insured made misrepresentations in bankruptcy filings, and the insurer received an uncontradicted coverage opinion from an attorney.

Until recently, the creditor of a chapter 7 debtor whose debts were not primarily consumer in naturewas unable to rely on Eleventh Circuit precedent to support its position that its debtor's chapter 7 bankruptcy case should be dismissed for bad faith.

The Bottom Line

California Courts have discretion to award attorneys’ fees to a prevailing defendant in a trade secrets action where the commencement or continued prosecution of a trade secrets action is in bad faith. We have blogged about this issue twice previously.

In re 1701 Commerce, LLC, 477 B.R. 652 (Bankr. N.D. Tex. 2012) –

The capital stack for Presidio Hotel Fort Worth, L.P. consisted of (1) a senior loan of $39.6 million from Dougherty Funding, LLC, (2) a junior loan from Vestin Originations, Inc. and (3) a 20-year tax agreement with the City of Fort Worth pursuant to which the City made annual grant payments.

In the case of Coughlin v. South Canaan Cellular Investments, LLC, C.A. No. 7202-VCL (Del. Ch. July 6, 2012), Respondents made a request for fee shifting under the bad-faith exception to the American Rule.  In reviewing this fee shifting request, the Court found that Respondents’ request itself was unfounded, and coupled with Respondents’ own conduct in the case, instead awarded Petitioner his fees in costs in the amount of $17,906.

In an opinion that has wide-ranging implications for the structured finance industry, the Delaware bankruptcy court recently dismissed a mezzanine borrower’s chapter 11 case as a bad faith filing pursuant to section 1112(b) of the Bankruptcy Code. In re JER/Jameson Mezz Borrower II, LLC, No. 11-13338, 2011 WL 6749058 (Bankr. D. Del. Dec.

The United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (the Court) recently granted a motion to dismiss a mezzanine borrower’s chapter 11 bankruptcy petition at the outset of the debtor’s case.¹ In In re JER/Jameson Mezz Borrower II, LLC, The Court found that the debtor’s petition had been filed in bad faith because, among other things, a junior mezzanine lender had directed the debtor to file the petition with the intent of hindering a senior mezzanine lender’s foreclosure efforts and without any valid reorganization purpose.

In a client advisory sent by our office a few months ago, we described a decision in the Madoff saga in which the District Court for the Southern District of New York (the Court) closed off a potential avenue of significant recovery for the Madoff Trustee (the Trustee) and the Ponzi scheme victims by denying the Trustee standing to pursue certain claims against feeder funds – firms that sent investors’ funds to Madof