The bankruptcy process is often long and arduous for clients, whether debtor or creditor, and their counsel.  Bankruptcy courts feel the pain, too.  So, when we finally reach the glorious goal of plan confirmation, most revel in the conclusion of the plan process.  Though often considered anathema, appeals of plan confirmation orders are sometimes pursued.  Recognizing the public policy desire for finality in bankruptcy proceedings, the Eighth Circuit applies the “person-aggrieved” doctrine in determining whether an appellant has standing to appeal a plan confirmation or

In Venture Bank v. Lapides, 800 F.3d 442 (8th Cir. 2015), the Eighth Circuit found that a bank could not recover from its borrower and, in fact, had violated the post-discharge injunction by relying on change in terms agreements which were ineffective to reaffirm a debt discharged in the borrower’s Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

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.

‘Cause Tonight / Is the Night / When 2 Become 1

-The Spice Girls

In Ritchie Capital Mgmt., LLC v. Stoebner, 779 F.3d 857 (8th Cir. 2015), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed a bankruptcy court’s decision that transfers of trademark patents were avoidable under section 548(a)(1)(A) of the Bankruptcy Code and Minnesota state law because they were made with the intent to defraud creditors.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit recently held that insiders who control the operations of a debtor owe a duty, as fiduciaries, to refrain from self-dealing. In re Brook Valley VII, Joint Venture (Lange v. Schropp), 496 F.3d 892 (8th Cir. 2007). The controlling insiders of two Chapter 11 debtors had thus breached their fiduciary duties to the debtors when they caused the debtors to consent to a foreclosure sale of estate properties and then secretly purchased the properties for themselves at the sale.

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (“WARN”) requires an employer to give 60 days’ advance written notice prior to a plant closing or mass layoff. Frequently, as a company encounters financial distress—a situation that often leads to a plant closing or mass layoff— creditors exercise greater control over the entity in an attempt to recover debts owed to them. When the faltering company fails to provide the requisite WARN notice, terminated employees often assert that WARN liability should attach to such creditors. In Coppola v. Bear, Stearns & Co.

In In re Falcon Products, Inc., 381 B.R. 543 (8th Cir. BAP, 2008), the bankruptcy appellate panel (BAP) for the Eighth Circuit reversed a decision by the bankruptcy court for the District of Missouri, and held that when applying the hypothetical liquidation test to determine whether a secured creditor received potentially preferential payments, the collateral must be valued as of the petition date and not as of the payment transfer date.

In a recent decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, the court reversed a ruling against a D&O insurer in a coverage action arising from a bankruptcy case. In re: SRC Holding Corp., Nos. 07-1327/1335 (8th Cir. Oct. 27, 2008). Click here to read the Eighth Circuit's decision.

We previously posted on March 17, 2008 about a bankruptcy judgment in favor of a reinsured, Acceptance Insurance Companies, Inc. (“Acceptance”), which sought to be excused from the payment of $9 million in premium owed to its reinsurer for the remaining term of a five year contract because it had ceased writing the underlying crop insurance which was the subject of the reinsurance contract.