The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended (“ERISA”), requires trustees of multiemployer pension and benefit funds to collect contributions required to be made by contributing employers under their collective bargaining agreements (“CBAs”) with the labor union sponsoring the plans. This is not always an easy task—often, an employer is an incorporated entity with limited assets or financial resources to satisfy its contractual obligations.

New value is an important defense to preference liability under the Bankruptcy Code. It allows a preference defendant to relieve their preference liability on a dollar-for-dollar basis for the value provided to the debtor prior to the bankruptcy case.

In a very important decision, the Eighth Circuit recently addressed how the new value defense to preference liability should be applied in three-party payment arrangement.

When Reston-based Simplexity, LLC (known more commonly as Wirefly.com and its related sites) recently filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy it had, sadly, already terminated nearly its entire workforce.  According to pleadings filed in the case, Simplexity had hoped to market and sell its assets outside of bankruptcy in order to maximize creditor recovery and preserve the jobs of its employees.   Instead, its liquidity reached such a critical level that it was forced to cease operations on March 12 and file for bankruptcy protection on March 16, 2014.  Just one day later, on M

CALIFORNIA COURT REFUSES TO ALLOW POST-VERDICT SETOFFS OF POTENTIAL BANKRUPTCY TRUST CLAIMS

Evidence of claims by plaintiffs to asbestos bankruptcy trusts is critical to the defense of any asbestos case. In California, for example, Volkswagen of America Inc. v. Superior Court (Rusk) (2006) 139 Cal.App.4th 1481, highlighted the importance of the discovery of such claims for purposes of setoffs and establishing a defendant’s proportional share of damages.

After filing for US bankruptcy protection in Texas based on aJapanese bankruptcy, the Judge ordered that Mt.

ASBESTOS TRUSTS FIND “PATTERN” OF SUBMITTING UNRELIABLE EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT TRUST CLAIMS

The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, on March 19, 2014, held that a corrupt debtor’s pre-bankruptcy cash transfer to a commodity broker was a “settlement payment” made “in connection with a securities contract,” thus falling “within [Bankruptcy Code] §546(e)’s safe harbor” and insulating the transfer from the trustee’s preference claim. Grede v. FCStone, LLC (In re Sentinel Management Group, Inc.), 2014 WL 1041736, *7 (7th Cir. Mar. 19, 2014).

The Ninth Circuit’s Bankruptcy Appellate Panel (BAP) recently upheld the disallowance of a credit union’s claims after the credit union’s “disgruntled employee” failed to file the proofs of claim before the claims bar date. 

The case of Spokane Law Enforcement Federal Credit Union v. Barker (In re Barker) serves as a cautionary tale—reminding creditors and their attorneys of the importance of timely filing proofs of claim.  

Law360, New York (March 25, 2014, 1:21 PM ET) -- On Feb. 11, the three private plaintiff-appellants and 11 state plaintiff-appellants in State National Bank of Big Spring et al. v. Jacob J. Lew et al. filed briefs with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in their appeal of the district court’s decision that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge certain provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Pub. L. No. 111-203, 124 Stat. 1376 (2010).

Under section 502(b)(6) of the United States Bankruptcy Code, a landlord's claim for damages under a lease rejected during the bankruptcy proceeding is capped at the greater of rent reserved under the lease for (a) one year; or (b) 15% or the remaining lease term, not to exceed three years. Under that calculation, a lease with a remaining term of 81 months or more would be entitled to claim greater than one year's rent.