The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida recently held that:
What better time than the holiday season to discuss “gifting” in the context of chapter 11 cases. “Gifting” commonly refers to the situation where a senior creditor pays (or allocates a portion of its collateral for the benefit of) one or more junior claimholders. Gifting is often employed as a tool to resolve the opposition of a junior class of creditors, who are typically out-of-the-money, to the manner in which the bankruptcy case is being administered. For instance, creditors’ committees may seek gifts from senior creditors to guarantee a recovery for general unsecured
In a case addressing what it means to "surrender" property under the Bankruptcy Code, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida recently held that a Chapter 7 trustee's abandonment of real property only restores legal title to the debtors as if no bankruptcy petition had been filed, and does not also give the debtors the right to contest the mortgagee's foreclosure if the debtors elected to surrender the property.
If Party A files an involuntary bankruptcy case against Party B that is contested by Party B, and if Party A fails to convince a bankruptcy court that Party B should be a debtor in such involuntary bankruptcy case, the general rule is that Party A must pay the reasonable attorneys’ fees incurred by Party B in successfully obtaining dismissal of the involuntary filing.
In its decision in Lazzo v. Bank (In re Schupach Investments, L.L.C.), 2015 WL 6685416 (10th Cir. 2015), the Tenth Circuit sent a clear message to attorneys representing debtors-in-possession: make sure you have authority to represent the debtor if you want to be compensated from the estate.
The Bankruptcy Forms Modernization Project is an initiative that will require filers to use new bankruptcy forms effective December 1, 2015. The new forms are part of a forms modernization project that was started by the Advisory Committee on Bankruptcy Rules in 2008. The petitions, schedules and other official forms will all be revised, reformatted and renumbered. The goal of the initiative is to improve the interface between technology and the forms to increase efficiency and reduce the need to produce the same information in multiple formats.
On November 23, 2015, Southern District of Florida District Court Judge Kenneth A. Marra issued an opinion affirming an order granting a creditor's motion to compel surrender of real property pursuant to a statement of intention entered by Southern District of Florida Bankruptcy Judge Paul G. Hyman in the bankruptcy proceedings of David and Donna Failla. Failla v. Citibank, N.A. (In re Failla), Civ. No.: 15-80328-CIV-KAM, (S.D. Fla. Nov. 23, 2015), aff'd, 529 B.R. 786 (Bankr. S.D. Fla. 2014).
Several of the Official Bankruptcy Forms will be replaced on December 1, 2015. For creditors, the most notable changes will be to two forms: the Proof of Claim form, Form 410, and the Mortgage Proof of Claim Attachment, Form 410A. These changes reflect an effort by the Bankruptcy Courts to elicit a clear and complete picture of what the debtor owes and how much must be paid to cure a pre-bankruptcy arrearage. Due to the Bankruptcy Court’s focus on clarity, creditors are well advised to closely follow the claim forms and accompanying instructions.
The Federal Reserve Board approved a final rule specifying its procedures for emergency lendingunder Section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act. Since the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010, the Board’s authority to engage in emergency lending has been limited to programs and facilities with “broad-based eligibility” that have been established with the approval
Insider creditors “waived [the] right to charge default interest on” their claims and “failed to prove” their claim for non-default interest, held the U.S. Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the Tenth Circuit (“BAP”) on Nov. 6, 2015. In re Autterson, 2015 WL 6789168, at *4 (10th Cir. BAP, Nov. 6, 2015).