Claims held by employees of a Chapter 11 debtor based on “restricted stock units (‘RSUs’) … must be subordinated [under Bankruptcy Code § 510(b)] to the claims of general creditors because … (i) RSUs are securities, (ii) the claimants acquired them in a purchase, and (iii) the claims for damages arise from those purchases or the asserted rescissions thereof,” held the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on May 4, 2017. In re Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc., 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 7920, *6 (2d Cir. May 4, 2017).

This decision is significant to debt collectors and debt buyers who, according to the dissent, “have ‘deluge[d]’ the bankruptcy courts with claims ‘on debts deemed unenforceable under state statutes of limitations.’”

Earlier this month, the United States Supreme Court agreed to review a Seventh Circuit decision regarding the scope of the so-called “safe harbor” from avoidable transfers provided in Section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code. Many in the U.S. bankruptcy industry expect that the Supreme Court granted certiorari to hear Merit Management Group, LP v. FTI Consulting, Inc., Case No. 16-784, in order to resolve a long-running split among the 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 8th, and 10th Circuits, on the one hand, and the 7th and 11th Circuits on the other.

In a recent decision, the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel of the Sixth Circuit (the “Court”) considered the issue of asset “abandonment” in a Chapter 7 case[1]. The Court reversed the bankruptcy court’s decision to allow the Chapter 7 trustee to compromise a claim that the debtor argued the trustee had abandoned.

Background

On May 15, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (5-3) in favor of the debt collection industry, holding that the filing of a proof of claim against a chapter 13 debtor on a debt that cannot be enforced under state law because the statute of limitations on it has expired does not violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), because filing such a proof of claim is not a “false, deceptive, or misleading representation” or an “unfair or unconscionable” means for collecting a debt, as those terms are used in FDCPA.

Third party releases in a chapter 11 plan have become fairly common in the United States. A recent decision by the Delaware District Court in Opt-Out Lenders v. Millennium Lab Holdings II, LLC (In re Millennium Lab Holdings II, LLC), however, questions whether the bankruptcy court has the authority to approve nonconsensual third party releases as part of confirmation of a chapter 11 plan.

Debt collectors scored a win on Monday when the United States Supreme Court ruled that pursuing stale debt is not a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”).

The case of Midland Funding LLC v Aleida Johnson addressed an ongoing issue for creditors, debt collectors and consumers. As debts age, and are often sold, there remains a question of how far collectors may go to pursue payment on the debt.

In Millenium Lab Holdings, Delaware District Court Judge Leonard Stark, on an appeal from a bankruptcy court order confirming a plan of reorganization, recently upheld a challenge to the bankruptcy court’s constitutional authority to release claims against non-debtor third parties under the plan.

On May 15, 2017, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Midland Funding, LLC v. Johnson, 581 U.S. ___ (2017) in which it held that filing an “obviously time-barred” proof of claim in a bankruptcy proceeding does not violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA).

Rue21 Inc. (“Rue21”) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Pittsburgh, PA on Monday (case no. 17-22045-GLT, Western District of Pennsylvania).