Although its Israel-based electric car company had already filed bankruptcy in its home country, Better Place, Inc., the U.S. parent of the foreign debtor, filed for protection under chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware earlier this summer, in the hopes of obtaining protection of its U.S. assets while the foreign bankruptcy was being administered.

Last year, a U.S. bankruptcy court held that a bankruptcy trustee could settle a Financial ‎Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) suit against a broker-dealer by its former employee ‎seeking damages and expungement of alleged false and defamatory FINRA Form U-5 ‎termination disclosure language, over the objection of the former employee-debtor.2  Once a ‎bankruptcy case is filed by a former employee, the claims become property of the bankruptcy ‎estate.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the Eighth Circuit affirmed a lower court ruling that the funds in a debtor’s Health Savings Account (HSA) are not excluded from the bankruptcy estate and are not exempt. On the date of his bankruptcy filing, the debtor listed the funds in his HSA as an asset that should be excluded from the bankruptcy estate. He specifically asserted that under 11 U.S.C.

In a decision that comes as welcome news to some employers, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that an employer that incurred withdrawal liability to a multiemployer pension plan had not become a plan fiduciary by failing to pay the withdrawal liability, and could discharge that liability in bankruptcy.

When businesses pay for goods and services, they generally like to receive them.  Unfortunately, as any bankruptcy lawyer will tell you, this consistent desire is not matched by uniform experience.

In a recent Ninth Circuit case, Carpenters Pension Trust Fund for Northern California v. Moxley, 2013 WL 4417594 (9th Cir. 2013), the court held that an employer's withdrawal liability was dischargeable in bankruptcy. In this case, the employer filed for bankruptcy protection after the Pension Fund assessed withdrawal liability.

The Bottom Line: 

Section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code offers a strong defense for holders of bonds, notes and other securities to preference and fraudulent transfer actions brought in bankruptcy proceedings. Essentially, any payment made to settle or complete a securities transaction, including repurchases and redemptions of bonds, notes and debentures, is protected from avoidance under the Bankruptcy Code. For many years, however, this powerful defense was rarely used. When the defense was raised, it was usually in the context of protecting payments made in leveraged buy-outs.

Can a secured creditor decide not to participate in a bankruptcy proceeding and thereby avoid any impact the bankruptcy may have on its lien? According to a recent decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in S. White Transp., Inc. v. Acceptance Loan Co., 2013 WL 3983343 (5th Cir. Aug. 5, 2013), the answer appears to be that at least in the Fifth Circuit, the secured creditor can avoid the impact a bankruptcy plan has on its lien by simply declining to participate in the bankruptcy proceeding.

In drafting the provisions of the Bankruptcy Code relating to nonresidential real property, Congress intended commercial landlords to be “entitled to significant safeguards.”1 Examples of the protections afforded to commercial landlords include requiring a debtor to remain current in its payment of post-petition rent;2 allowing landlords to drawdown on a letter of credit without prior bankruptcy court approval;3 permitting landlords to setoff pre-petition unpaid rent against a security deposit and/or lease rejection damages;4 recognizing that a tenant’s possessory rights in nonresident