On June 27, 2014, in National Heritage Foundation, Inc. v. Highbourne Foundation, 1 the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, agreeing with decisions by the Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, which were issued upon remand from a prior appeal, held that the third-party non-debtor release provision in the chapter 11 plan of reorganization of National Heritage Foundation, Inc. was invalid.
On June 27, 2014, the Fourth Circuit issued its second opinion in the National Heritage Foundation, Inc.
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled in the case of In re Construction Supervision Services that the property interest underlying a subcontractor’s lien on funds arises from the date it first furnishes labor or materials to a construction project. The timing of when an interest in property arises is critical as it could allow, as it did here, a subcontractor to prime a lender’s perfected lien on accounts receivable when notice was not served until after the debtor filed bankruptcy. This alert briefly describes the decision’s impact on the constru
Professional compensation is often a contentious issue in bankruptcy, as we have previously discussed.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, on Feb. 21, 2014, affirmed the dismissal of a bankruptcy trustee’s fraudulent transfer complaint against a “warehouse” lender who had been paid by a distressed home mortgage originator several months prior to the originator’s bankruptcy. Gold v. First Tennessee Bank, N.A., 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 3279 (4th Cir. Feb. 21, 2014) (2-1). Affirming the lower courts, the Fourth Circuit held that “the bank accepted the payments” from its borrower “in good faith.” Id., at *2.
In Jaffé v. Samsung Electronics Co. (In re Qimonda AG), 737 F.3d 14 (4th Cir. 2013) (No. 12-1802), the Fourth Circuit affirmed a bankruptcy court’s ruling protecting licensees’ rights in connection with the recognition of a German insolvency proceeding. In Jaffe, the foreign debtor’s administrator petitioned the U.S. bankruptcy court for powers under Chapter 15 of the U.S.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently affirmed the bankruptcy court decision in the Qimonda AG chapter 15 bankruptcy case,1 providing that holders of intellectual property licenses based on U.S. patents are entitled to the special protections contained in 11 U.S.C. § 365(n).2 In so doing, the court bolstered the rights of U.S. intellectual property licensees whose agreements might otherwise be vulnerable to termination in a cross-border insolvency proceeding.
Background
The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Jaffe v. Samsung Elecs. Co., Ltd.,1 recently held that a U.S. bankruptcy court is not required under principles of comity to blindly apply foreign law to assets located in the U.S. of a foreign debtor whose principal insolvency proceeding is outside the U.S. Instead, bankruptcy courts must balance the interests of the affected U.S. parties with the those of the foreign debtor. In this case, the balancing required the application of U.S. law to the foreign debtor’s U.S. assets, not German law as applied in the foreign proceeding.
My how time flies in protracted bankruptcy litigation. More than four years ago, as I reported back at the time, the Bankruptcy Court in the Chapter 15 cross-border bankruptcy case of Qimonda AG issued its first decision on the application of Section 365(n) in that case. After an initial appeal, a four-day trial on remand, and another appeal, last week the U.S.
In a case of significant importance to licensees of US intellectual property, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held in Jaffé v. Samsung Electronics Co. (In re Qimonda), Case No. 12-1802, 2003 WL 26478864 (4th Cir. Dec. 3, 2013) (“Jaffé”), that a bankruptcy court did not err by requiring that the protections of section 365(n) of the Bankruptcy Code apply with respect to a foreign debtor’s US intellectual property (“IP”) as a condition of granting the debtor’s foreign representative relief under chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code.