In the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (“2005 Act”), Congress amended the Bankruptcy Code and Title 28 of the U.S.
The “Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019” (SBRA) signed into law on August 23, 2019 contains two amendments to Chapter 11 preference laws, which are NOT limited to small business reorganizations.
1. Debtors’ Burden of Proof.
A “little bit of a crisis” was averted last week in the Chapter 11 bankruptcy case of St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, a Philadelphia-area hospital with ties to Hahnemann University Hospital, which is also a Chapter 11 debtor.[1] On Tuesday, Delaware bankruptcy judge Kevin Gross said he could not approve a $65 million DIP loan requested by St.
On Friday, August 23, President Trump signed into law the “Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019.” The SBRA will take effect in February 2020 and, at long last, may provide some (although probably minimal) relief to businesses, large and small, from the threat of questionable and small dollar bankruptcy preference claims.
The Bottom Line
This article first appeared in Law360.
We have blogged several times about mass tort plaintiffs who failed to list their tort claims in prior bankruptcy proceedings, thereby stiffing their creditors. See here, for example. Do they get away with it? Usually not. Courts have routinely sent those tort plaintiffs packing, and two different theories call for that result: (1) lack of standing, and (2) judicial estoppel.
Military veterans often pay a heavy toll for their service from a physical, emotional and even financial standpoint. A new federal law— the Honoring American Veterans in Extreme Need Act of 2019 or the HAVEN Act— aims to address the latter hardship, providing disabled military veterans with greater protections in bankruptcy proceedings.
Introduction
Congress recently sent two different bills to the President’s desk that are designed to provide an easier path for family farming operations and small businesses to reorganize under the Bankruptcy Code: the Family Farmer Relief Act of 2019 and the Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019.