A recent decision by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York may make it easier for debtors to obtain some relief from preferential payments to a foreign entity, even if the recipient of the transfer has no address in the United States. 

This is the second post in our series on 

Bankruptcy practitioners routinely advise secured creditor clients to file protective proofs of claim in bankruptcy proceedings despite those clients’ ability to ignore bankruptcy proceedings and decline filing claims without imperiling their lien due to the protections afforded by state law foreclosure rights.^[1] But a recent Ninth Circuit decision is causing attorneys and clients to reconsider whether this traditionally conservative approach is simply too risky in Chapter 13 cases. HSBC Bank v. Blendheim (In re Blendheim), No. 13-35412, 2015 WL 5730015 (9th Cir. Oct.

A ruling recently handed down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit may provide significant flexibility to debtors in that circuit who are implementing sales of substantially all of their assets. In In re LCI Holding Company, Inc., 2015 BL 295784 (3d Cir. Sept.

As we’ve previously covered in prior blog posts, Being In Love Means Never Being Able To Get Your Student Loans Discharged, Or Why Stedman Graham Should Have To Pay His Student Loans and 

The recent Great Recession and the wave of bankruptcy filings that accompanied it presented a number of challenges for landlords and tenants. Yet, as the economy has recovered, we still continue to see restaurant and retail chains turn to the bankruptcy court’s for relief. Over the past year, a number of restaurants and retailers filed bankruptcy petitions. For example, American Apparel, Radio Shack, Anna’s Linens and Hot Dog on a Stick have sought protection from the bankruptcy courts.

“Each litigant [in the U.S. legal system] pays [its] own attorney’s fees, win or lose, unless a statute or contract provides otherwise.” Baker Botts LLP v. ASARCO LLP, 135 S. Ct. 2158, 2164 (2015) (6-3), quoting Hardt v. Reliance Standard Life Ins. Co., 560 U.S. 242, 252-53 (2010). A majority of the U.S.

The Ninth Circuit has overruled its own relatively recent decision and held that a debtor who sues for damages to redress a violation of the automatic stay may recover the reasonable fees it incurs in prosecuting the action, even after the stay violation is cured.

A recent and emerging trend in Chapter 7 bankruptcy cases is lawsuits brought by Chapter 7 trustees to recover from colleges and universities pre-petition tuition payments made by Chapter 7 debtors for their adult children’s post-secondary education. While many of these cases have settled, thus not resulting in reported decisions, there are four written decisions to date on this subject.¹ This article discusses the legal theory behind these avoidance actions and explores the universe of case law.

On October 28, 2015, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (the “Bankruptcy Court”) issued a decision that significantly expands the jurisdictional bases that foreign issuers can rely upon to obtain relief in the United States under Chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code.