Some legal commentators have lamented the extent to which lenders have been able to use debtor in possession (“DIP”) financing arrangements to gain control over an entire Chapter 11 case.

The economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic will leave in its wake a significant increase in commercial chapter 11 filings. Many of these cases will feature extensive litigation involving breach of contract claims, business interruption insurance disputes, and common law causes of action based on novel interpretations of long-standing legal doctrines such as force majeure.

In Millenium Lab Holdings, Delaware District Court Judge Leonard Stark, on an appeal from a bankruptcy court order confirming a plan of reorganization, recently upheld a challenge to the bankruptcy court’s constitutional authority to release claims against non-debtor third parties under the plan.

The Supreme Court has not handled its recent major bankruptcy decisions well. The jurisdictional confusion engendered by its 2011 decision in Stern v.

The chapter 9 bankruptcy case of the City of Detroit has been as complex and litigious as anticipated.  Nevertheless, Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr has kept plodding forward, and last week filed a proposed plan of adjustment, the road map for the Motor City to emerge from bankruptc

A recent Pennsylvania case, Graystone Bank v. Grove Estates, LP, upheld the enforceability of a confessed judgment provision even in light of alleged inconsistencies. In most cases, a confessed judgment is a debtor’s statement signed prior to a default that a stipulated amount is owed to a creditor and permits bypassing certain legal proceedings.

U.S.

IN RE: RESOURCE TECHNOLOGY CORP. (OCTOBER 31, 2011)

The well known travails of Fred Wilpon, the principal owner of the New York Mets, have all converged this past week. He, his partner Saul Katz and their families and affiliated enterprises (the “Wilpon/Katz Group”) lost several hundred million dollars when Bernard Madoff’s long running Ponzi scheme finally unraveled at the height of the financial crisis in 2008.

Bankruptcy lawyers who are regularly involved in distressed m&a deals have been wondering for the past few months about the potential fallout from Philadelphia Newspapers.