This article was first published in The Bankruptcy Strategist

Inre Zais Investment Grade Limited VII, 455 B.R. 839 (2011)

CASE SNAPSHOT

Spicer v. Konjoyan (In re Renaissance Hospital, et al.), Adv. No. 10-04190-DML (Bankr. N.D. Texas, Nov. 1, 2011)

CASE SNAPSHOT

On the surface, Irving Picard, the trustee of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC (“BLMIS”), had a very good day. Judge Jed S.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of Illinois held that a debtor's explanation of estate planning as a rationale for asset transfers made prior to bankruptcy is sufficient to survive the Bankruptcy Trustee's motion for summary judgment. However, the Court noted that a deeper factual analysis would be required and expressed skepticism for the debtor's estate planning rationale.

Last week, the bankruptcy estate of Orleans Homebuilders filed over 250 complaints to recover alleged preferential transfers (see our previous post on the Orleans bankruptcy here, as well as a post on bankruptcy preference actions here).

Bankruptcy Courts may be courts of equity, but a recent decision by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York holds that even equity can’t trump the plain words of a settlement agreement.

News reports in 2011 suggested that municipal bankruptcy filings were frequent and substantial. Each of Central Falls, Rhode Island, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Jefferson County, Alabama filed for bankruptcy protection in the second half of 2011. Even a state-owned local monopoly on (legal) gambling was not safe from financial turmoil in 2011: Suffolk County’s Off-Track Betting Corporation filed for bankruptcy on March 18. Indeed, 2011 seemed to be the year of chapter 9, which governs municipal bankruptcy filings.

Active participants in the derivatives market rely on the Bankruptcy Code safe harbor set forth in section 546(e) in pricing their securities. That provision restricts a debtor’s power to recover payments made in connection with certain securities transactions that might otherwise be avoidable under the Bankruptcy Code. Two high profile cases decided in 2011 addressed challenges to the application of section 546(e). The more widely reported decision (at least outside the bankruptcy arena) was in connection with the Madoff insolvency case. See Picard v.

In a September 7, 2010 article, the Wall Street Journal reported an uptick in bankruptcy claim activity by traders and the desire of the traders to not comply with certain bankruptcy disclosure requirements that applied to “committees.” The Journal highlighted one case where Bankruptcy Judge Brendan Shannon of the Delaware District Court held the following exchange with a lawyer for certain bondholders: “‘Are you a Committee?’ The lawyer began to answer, ‘Well, actually Your Honor, we are a group of - -’.