Four years ago, in Stern v. Marshall, the Supreme Court stunned many observers by re-visiting separation of powers issues regarding the jurisdiction of the United States bankruptcy courts that most legal scholars had viewed as long settled. Stern significantly reduced the authority of bankruptcy courts, and bankruptcy judges and practitioners both have since been grappling with the ramifications of that decision.

Fisker Automotive’s chapter 11 case began in what has become a depressingly familiar fashion – a fast-tracked sale to a secured lender.  However, two rulings by Judge Kevin Gross of the U.S.

Atari, Inc., the creator of the primordial video game “Pong”, filed for Chapter 11 yesterday in the U.S.

We have been following the saga of the case brought by Irving Picard, the trustee overseeing the Bernard Madoff bankruptcy liquidation proceeding, against the owners of the NY Mets, Saul Katz and Fred Wilpon.

The U.S. Supreme Court will rule this term in RadLAX Gateway Hotel Inc. v. Amalgamated Bank on whether the Bankruptcy Code permits a debtor in a chapter 11 case to sell encumbered assets without providing the secured lender an opportunity to credit bid its debt. Determination of this question will require the Court essentially to choose between two opposing approaches to statutory interpretation, and decide whether the so-called “plain meaning” of a highly formalistic reading of the Bankruptcy Code should trump decades of established commercial practice.   

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. ROGAN (May 12, 2011)

REDMOND v. FIFTH THIRD BANK (October 20, 2010)