The Bankruptcy Code is federal law. It affords debtors protections - including the automatic stay and debt discharge injunction - that hold creditors at bay.

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”) is also federal law. It contains limitations on what a debt collector can do when attempting to collect a debt.

Because debts - and more particularly attempts to collect those debts - drive people into bankruptcy, bankruptcy courts are sometimes forced to grapple with questions of how the Bankruptcy Code and FDCPA interact and impact each other.

Here, at the Bankruptcy Blog, we are committed to keeping you up to speed on the current state of bankruptcy law. Today’s post provides readers with an update to a decision by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, which considered whether the debtors were required to assume a bundle of related agreements as one executory contract, or whether the debtors could assume only those agreements that contained provisions most favorable to their ongoing operations.

This is the fifth in a series of Alerts regarding the proposals made by the American Bankruptcy Institute Commission to Reform Chapter 11 Business Bankruptcies. This alert covers the Commission’s recommendations regarding the now predominant practice of selling substantially all of the debtor’s assets as a going concern, free of all claims, at the outset of a bankruptcy case. The process, known as a “363 Sale” for the Bankruptcy Code section that applies, has been hailed as a job-saving measure and condemned for giving all value to lenders and none to other creditors.

Determining whether a security interest is properly perfected by using a state’s online lien search may be leading you astray.

The Delaware bankruptcy court recently denied a debtors’ motion to sell real estate free and clear of a bank’s senior liens on the properties. The court rejected the debtors’ arguments that the bank could be compelled to take less than the full amount of the bank’s debt under section 363(f)(5) of the Bankruptcy Code. The decision is a useful reminder that, in some jurisdictions, a bank holding senior liens may be entitled to veto any sale that does not result in payment-in-full.

In a case of first impression at the Circuit Level, the Ninth Circuit has held that an insider who waives his right to indemnification from a debtor is not a “creditor” for purposes of preferential transfe

We have previously discussed default-rate interest and late fees in connection with a secured creditor’s claim.  Can a secured creditor choose to waive one in favor of the other if both are not available?  And when is a secured creditor entitled to default-rate interest in the first place

Last week, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a decision by the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York in In re TPG Troy, LLC, 2015 U.S. App.

The United States Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the Eighth Circuit recently held that filing a proof of claim on a time-barred debt is not, alone, a prohibited debt collection practice under the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

A copy of the opinion is available at: Link to Opinion.

A.  Where We Left Off