A “life settlement” is the sale of a life insurance policy to a third party for a value in excess of the policy’s cash surrender value, but less than its death benefit. The life settlement industry focuses on the purchase and sale of life settlements or fractional interests in life settlements to investors. These investors may be anyone from individuals to groups of investors, hedge funds or other institutional investors.
On September 7-8, 2016, various debtors in the ADI Liquidation, Inc. (f/k/a AWI Delaware, Inc.), et al. bankruptcy proceeding filed approximately 332 complaints seeking the avoidance and recovery of allegedly preferential and/or fraudulent transfers under Sections 544 and/or 547, 548 and 550 of the Bankruptcy Code (depending upon the nature of the underlying transactions). The Debtors also seek to disallow claims of such defendants under Sections 502(d) and (j) of the Bankruptcy Code.
In the recent decision of Lehman Bros. Special Fin. Inc. v. Bank of Am. Nat’l Assoc. (In re Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc.), 2016 WL 3621180 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. June 28, 2016), the U.S.
On June 28, 2016, Judge Chapman of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York ruled in Lehman Brothers Special Financing Inc. v. Bank of America National Association, et al.(Adv. Proc. No. 10-03547 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y.
Excalibur had been in run-off status since 2003, and under regulatory supervision since at least 2013. A Pennsylvania court has now placed Excalibur into liquidation based on three grounds: (1) insolvency – Excalibur’s admitted assets did not exceed its liabilities plus the greater of its capital and required surplus or capital stock; (2) Excalibur’s total adjusted capital was less than its mandatory control level risk-based capital; and (3) Excalibur’s board of directors and sole shareholder consented to liquidation.
In a pair of decisions in 2015, the United States Bankruptcy Court of the District of Delaware determined that neither the first lien notes trustee nor the second lien notes trustee of Energy Future Intermediate Holdings Corp. (“EFIH”), a subsidiary of Energy Future Holdings (“EFH”), was entitled to receive a make-whole on the repayment of the corresponding indebtedness resulting from the acceleration of that debt in the EFH bankruptcy case.
Two recent cases serve as reminders the devil is truly in the details.
You can "wind up" a partnership without having to liquidate all of its assets and terminating its existence. So ruled Judge McGuire last week in Hardin v. Lewis, 2016 NCBC 55. But that may not be true for all partnerships. This case involved a law firm partnership which was continuing to operate its practice after one of its partners left to start her own law firm.
The scope of the Bankruptcy Code’s safe harbor for certain financial contracts has been tested again, this time in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Louisiana. The question this time was whether an ipso facto provision continues to be safe harbored if enforcement of that provision is conditioned on other factors – in this case, the debtor’s failure to perform under the contract.
A bankruptcy court’s asset sale order limiting specific pre-bankruptcy product liability claims required prior “actual or direct mail notice” to claimants when the debtor “knew or reasonably should have known about the claims,” held the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on July 13, 2016. In re Motors Liquidation Co., 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 12848, *46-47 (2d Cir. July 13, 2016).