The Bottom Line:

Breaking with the Third Circuit and the Fifth Circuit, on June 28, 2011, the Seventh Circuit held that a debtor's plan of reorganization that provides for the sale of the debtor's assets free and clear of an existing security interest may only be confirmed over the objection of its secured creditor if the plan's sale procedure permits the secured creditor to credit bid its secured debt for the assets being sold. River Road Hotel Partners, LLC v. Amalgamated Bank, -- F.3d --, Nos. 10-3597 & 10-3598 (7th Cir. June 28, 2011).

Summary

In a 24 page decision signed July 8, 2011, Judge Walrath of the Delaware Bankruptcy Court granted a motion to for summary judgment, holding a non-debtor defendant liable with the Debtor as a single employer for alleged WARN Act violations. Judge Walrath’s opinion is available here (the “Opinion”).

Background

On June 13, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld lower court rulings declaring unconstitutional a 2014 Puerto Rico law, portions of which mirrored chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy Code, that would have allowed the commonwealth’s public instrumentalities to restructure a significant portion of Puerto Rico’s bond debt (widely reported to be as much as $72 billion). In Commonwealth v. Franklin Cal. Tax-Free Tr., 2016 BL 187308 (U.S.

Over the last several years, the number of Chapter 15 filings has continued to grow. One of the most prominent of these bankruptcy filings is the Vitro S.A.B. de C.V. case. When last we reported on theVitro case, the Texas bankruptcy court administering the Chapter 15 case had denied recognition to the Mexican restructuring plan of Vitro because the plan provided third party releases to non-debtors. See Vitro, S.A.B.: Bankruptcy Court Refuses to Recognize Mexican Concurso That Releases Claims Against Non-Debtors” (November 2012).

In In re Argon Credit, LLC, 2019 WL 169315 (Bankr. N.D. Ill. Jan. 10, 2019), the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled that, in accordance with section 510(a) of the Bankruptcy Code, a standby clause in a subordination agreement prevented a subordinated lender from conducting discovery concerning the senior lender’s claims.

SUMMARY

In In re Millennium Lab Holdings II, LLC, 2017 BL 354864 (Bankr. D. Del. Oct. 3, 2017), the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware ruled that it had the constitutional authority to grant nonconsensual third-party releases in an order confirming the chapter 11 plan of laboratory testing company Millennium Lab Holdings II, LLC ("Millennium"). In so ruling, the court rejected an argument made by a group of creditors that a provision in Millennium’s plan releasing racketeering claims against the debtor’s former shareholders was prohibited by the U.S.

Some “D&O policies” (Directors and Officers liability policies) exclude claims for losses “arising out of” the prior wrongful acts of officers or directors. The Eleventh Circuit recently interpreted the phrase “arising out of” broadly, finding that it is not a difficult standard to meet. Zucker for BankUnited Financial Corp. v. U.S. Specialty Insurance Co., -- F.3d -- ,  2017 WL 2115414, *7 (2017) (determining that under Florida law “‘arising out of’ . . . has a broad meaning even when used in a policy exclusion”); but see Brown v. American Intern.

On May 8, 2017, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida entered an order compelling production of attorney-client communications between Regions Bank and its counsel, finding that Regions had put those communications “at issue” by raising a good faith affirmative defense under 11 U.S.C. § 548(c) in response to a fraudulent transfer claim brought against it. Welch v. Regions Bank (In re Mongelluzzi), No. 8:14-ap-00653-CED (Bankr. M.D. Fla. May 8, 2017), ECF No. 319 (Delano, J.) (herein Mongelluzzi).