The Third Circuit held that a supplier may accept court-approved “critical vendor” payments post-petition from a debtor’s bankruptcy estate without fear that such payments will increase that supplier’s liability for payments received pre-petition. Friedman’s Liquidating Trust v. Roth Staffing Cos., 738 F.3d 547 (3d Cir. 2013) (No.

A central purpose of bankruptcy is to grant debtors a fresh start – in bankruptcy terms, a “discharge” of existing debts.  But not all debts are dischargeable.  Bankruptcy Code § 523(a)(2)(A), for example, prevents the discharge of debts resulting from “false pretenses, a false representation, or actual fraud . . . .”  What if a principal incurs a large debt based not on his own fraud, but on the fraud of his agent?  Is that debt dischargeable?  That was the question addressed recently by the Ninth Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel inIn re Huh, BAP No.

In Acceptance Loan Co., Inc. v. S. White Transportation, Inc. (In re S. White Transportation, Inc.), 725 F.3d 494 (5th Cir. 2013) (No.

Two recent decisions may affect the assets of individuals available to satisfy creditors' claims in bankruptcy. In the first decision, the Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of New York determined that married, joint debtors received value in exchange for tuition payments and rejected the bankruptcy trustee's arguments that the tuition payments were fraudulent transfers.

Section 547 of the Bankruptcy Code allows a bankruptcy trustee to recover transfers from creditors that are labeled “preferences.” To avoid a transfer as a preference, the trustee must generally demonstrate that the transfer: (1) was of an interest of the debtor in property, (2) was made to or for the benefit of a creditor, (3) was made on account of an antecedent debt owed by the debtor, (4) was made while the debtor was insolvent, (5) was made within 90 days before the petition date (within a year if the creditor was an insider) and (6) enabled the creditor to receive more than the c

It seems that most bankruptcy decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court involve individual debtors, and the Supreme Court’s latest opinion is no exception. Even though the decision is not in a business bankruptcy case, it examines the bankruptcy court’s powers under Section 105(a) of the Bankruptcy Code.

On March 4, 2014, the Supreme Court decided Law v.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, on Feb. 21, 2014, affirmed the dismissal of a bankruptcy trustee’s fraudulent transfer complaint against a “warehouse” lender who had been paid by a distressed home mortgage originator several months prior to the originator’s bankruptcy. Gold v. First Tennessee Bank, N.A., 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 3279 (4th Cir. Feb. 21, 2014) (2-1). Affirming the lower courts, the Fourth Circuit held that “the bank accepted the payments” from its borrower “in good faith.” Id., at *2.

The debtor in Law listed his house on his bankruptcy schedules, claiming a homestead exemption in the amount of $75,000 under Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 704.730(a)(1). The debtor represented that the house was encumbered by two liens: a note and deed of trust for $147,156.52 in favor of Washington Mutual Bank, and a second note and deed of trust for $156,929.04 in favor of “Lin’s Mortgage & Associates.” Based on these representations, the debtor made it appear as if there was no nonexempt value in the house that the trustee could realize for the benefit of the estate.

On March 4, 2014, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion in Law v. Seigel, Case No. 12-5196, 571 U.S.