Since the early Nineties, Czech insolvency legislation has undergone a number of positive changes. Creditor position improved, including that of secured creditors, and the protection of both the debtor and the bankrupt has also been strengthened. Moreover, with the new Insolvency Act effective from 2008, reorganization began to be more widely used in addressing bankruptcies. In Czech insolvency procedure, however, certain problematic areas still remain. One of them involves frivolous insolvency petitions filed by both creditors and debtors themselves.

There has been quite a lot of discussion over the past few months about the bench rulings issued by Judge Drain of the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York inMomentive Performance Materials (see our extensive coverage in four parts here, 

For a Throwback Thursday, we often go way back, to cases establishing first principles. This time, however, we travel not so far back, but still to a bygone era, the early 80’s. It was a time when the Bankruptcy Code was still new, and judges could interpret it without the weight of much practice and precedent. Often, these cases present the starting point for familiar interpretations that continued to develop in later years, but other times it’s surprising to see a new interpretive opening that, years later, is not thoroughly explored.

Judge Drain’s recent bench rulings in Momentive Performance Materials in 2014 generated a great deal of controversy in the distressed debt world.  Distressed investors, lenders, and commentators have questioned whether the Momentive rulings will lead to an industry trend in which debtors seek to cram down their secured lenders to take advantage of the ability to do so at below market interest rates.  

When evaluating a debtor’s bankruptcy or restructuring options, determining how to increase or preserve the debtor’s liquidity is crucial to the analysis. Well-advised debtors with significant labor liabilities will need to explore whether attaining cost savings through rejection of their collective bargaining agreements is a viable alternative.

Steve McCroskey: Jacobs, I want to know absolutely everything that’s happened up ‘til now.

Jacobs: Well, let’s see. First the earth cooled. And then the dinosaurs came, but they got too big and fat, so they all died and they turned into oil. . . .

-Airplane II: the Sequel

“An attorney’s reluctance, or that of his assistant, to work after 6:30 p.m. one evening in order to meet a court-imposed filing deadline does not constitute excusable neglect.”

– In re An

Introduction

One topic we regularly write about on the Bankruptcy Blog is releases – especially third-party releases. In fact, as recently as Thursday, we wrote about third-party releases. The topic of third-party releases is often controversial, and circuits disagree about the extent to which they are permissible, if at all.

If cramdown failures are par for the course, why are we all so fascinated with them? One thing is certain: they always provide a good teaching moment for practitioners. Marlow Manor’s chapter 11 single asset real estate case is no different.