In Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors v. Baldwin (In re Lemington Home for the Aged), 659 F.3d 282 (3d Cir. 2011), the Third Circuit Court of Appeals held, among other things, that the “deepening insolvency” cause of action, which the Third Circuit previously recognized in Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors v. R.F. Lafferty & Co., 267 F.3d 340 (3d Cir. 2001), remains an independent cause of action under Pennsylvania law.

Background

A significant consideration in a prospective chapter 11 debtor's strategic prebankruptcy planning is the most favorable venue for the bankruptcy filing.

In relation to insolvent liquidations under U.K. law, one of the primary objectives will be the implementation of an efficient process to preserve and recover assets for the benefit of the creditors. This is particularly so where there is a need to instigate costly litigation or cross-border recognition proceedings and where the liquidator will want increased assurances as to the likelihood that those steps will generate positive returns.

The "common interest" doctrine allows attorneys representing different clients with aligned legal interests to share information and documents without waiving the work-product doctrine or attorney-client privilege. Issues involving the common-interest doctrine often arise during the course of a business restructuring, because restructurings tend to involve various constituencies, including the company, the official committee of unsecured creditors, secured debt holders, other creditors, and equity holders whose legal interests may be aligned at any one time.

It is not surprising that within an economic outlook which seems permanently set to "gloomy" many companies are having to think about reorganising their operations or restructuring their holding structures This article highlights some of the tax and other considerations which must be borne in mind when considering such reorganisations or restructurings with reference to some recent (and less recent) cases and changes in the law and points which have come to the fore in the current climate.

Recapitalisations

For the third time in as many years, the Delaware Chancery Court has handed down an important ruling interpreting the interaction between federal bankruptcy law and Delaware corporate law. The thorny question this time was whether a bankruptcy court’s determination that the directors of a corporation acted in good faith when they authorized a chapter 11 filing precluded a subsequent claim that the directors breached their fiduciary duties by doing so. The Delaware Chancery Court concluded that it did, ruling in Nelson v.

In a significant Delaware law decision regarding creditors’ ability to sue corporate fiduciaries, the Delaware Supreme Court recently addressed the issue of whether a corporate director owes fiduciary duties to the creditors of a company that is insolvent or in the “zone of insolvency.” In North American Catholic Educ. Programming Found., Inc. v. Gheewalla, the court concluded that directors of a solvent Delaware corporation that is operating in the zone of insolvency owe their fiduciary duties to the corporation and its shareholders, and not creditors.

One of the most significant considerations in a prospective chapter 11 debtor’s strategic pre-bankruptcy planning is the most favorable venue for the bankruptcy filing.

Section 510(b) of the Bankruptcy Code provides a mechanism designed to preserve the creditor/shareholder risk allocation paradigm by categorically subordinating most types of claims asserted against a debtor by equity holders in respect of their equity holdings. However, courts do not always agree on the scope of this provision in undertaking to implement its underlying policy objectives. A New York bankruptcy court recently addressed this issue in In re Lehman Brothers Inc., 2014 BL 21201 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. Jan. 27, 2014).

A ruling handed down by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals on November 15, 2013, adds yet another chapter to the ongoing controversy concerning whether sold or assigned claims can be subject to disallowance under section 502(d) of the Bankruptcy Code on the basis of the seller’s receipt of a voidable transfer. The decision—In re KB Toys Inc., 2013 WL 6038248 (3d Cir. Nov. 15, 2013)—is an unwelcome missive for claims traders. For the first time since the enactment of the Bankruptcy Code in 1978, a circuit court of appeals has concluded that: