The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit contributed to a circuit split regarding jurisdiction in its recent decision in Pinpoint IT Services, LLC v. Rivera (In re Atlas IT Export Corp.).

The First Circuit held in a recent decision that bankruptcy courts have wide discretion to apply a flexible approach when valuing (and potentially re-valuing) collateral for purposes of determining whether a secured creditor is oversecured and therefore entitled to receive postpetition interest pursuant to section 506(b) of the Bankruptcy Code.   

The First Circuit Court of Appeals in In re SW Boston Hotel Venture, LLC, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 6768 (1st Cir. Apr. 11, 2014) recently ruled on a number of issues critical to valuing a secured claim in bankruptcy. Specifically, the court 1) endorsed the use of a “flexible approach” to value collateral under the circumstances of this case, 2) recognized that the date collateral should be valued is the lender’s burden to prove, and 3) confirmed that the pre-petition agreement’s default interest rate should generally be used to determine the post-petition interest rate.

Within one day of each other, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts (“District Court”) in Perkins v. Massachusetts Department of Revenue, 507 B.R. 45 (Mar. 7 2014), and the Bankruptcy Appellate Court for the First Circuit (“BAC”) in Gonzalez v. Massachusetts Department of Revenue, 506 B.R. 317 (Mar. 6, 2014), issued contrary appellate rulings as to whether tax liabilities in late-filed state tax returns are dis-chargeable under Chapter 7.

Although Section 506(b) of the Bankruptcy Code explicitly allows payment of post-petition interest to holders of oversecured claims (i.e., where the value of the collateral exceeds the amount of the claim), the Bankruptcy Code does not describe how to calculate it. No bright line rules exist dictating how to determine oversecured status, the timing of the valuation, and the rate and type of interest to be paid to oversecured creditors. Computation of post-petition interest is a frequent topic of debate among the courts.

On April 11, 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit rendered an important decision regarding the long-running bankruptcy case of SW Boston Hotel Venture LLC (“SW”), the developer of the W Boston Hotel. This Advisory focuses on two key rulings made by the First Circuit: (i) when an oversecured creditor’s claim for post-petition interest in a debtor’s chapter 11 case begins to accrue and (ii) how such post-petition interest should be calculated in the instances where it is due.

Two recent decisions may affect the assets of individuals available to satisfy creditors' claims in bankruptcy. In the first decision, the Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of New York determined that married, joint debtors received value in exchange for tuition payments and rejected the bankruptcy trustee's arguments that the tuition payments were fraudulent transfers.

Few areas of law are as confusing—or as important to understand—as the growing
intersection of employment and bankruptcy law. In recent years, funding shortfalls
in multi-employer pension plans, which cover roughly 20 percent of U.S. workers
with defined-benefit plans, have increased pressure on participating employers
to reduce their contributions or even withdraw entirely. Although employers taking
these actions would incur withdrawal liability as a consequence, that liability can

In Sun Capital Partners III, L.P. et al. v. New England Teamsters & Trucking Industry Pension Fund, No. 12-2312, 2013 WL 3814985 (1st Cir. July 24, 2013), the First Circuit held that a private equity fund could be liable for its bankrupt portfolio company’s withdrawal liability imposed under Title IV of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended (“ERISA”) on the basis of the private equity fund constituting a “trade or business” under ERISA’s controlled group rules.

On January 17, 2013, the United States Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the First Circuit (the “First Circuit BAP”) rendered its opinion in Massachusetts Department of Unemployment Assistance v. OPK Biotech, LLC (In re PBBPC, Inc.), BAP No. MB 12-042 (B.A.P. 1st Cir. Jan.