The Bottom Line

In the July/August 2019 issue of the Business Restructuring Review, we discussed a landmark decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in In re Ultra Petroleum Corp., 913 F.3d 533(5th Cir. 2019) ("Ultra I").

Under the "single-satisfaction rule," although a bankruptcy trustee or a chapter 11 debtor-in-possession ("DIP") may seek to avoid and recover avoidable transfers of a debtor's property from more than one transferee, the aggregate recovery is limited to the value of the property transferred. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit examined this rule in Jones v. Brand Law Firm PA (In re Belmonte), 931 F.3d 147 (2d Cir. 2019).

Except for disastrous fires that sparked the largest bankruptcy filing of the year, liabilities arising from the opioid crisis, the fallout from price-fixing, and corporate restructuring shenanigans, economic, market, and leverage factors generally shaped the large corporate bankruptcy landscape in 2019. California electric utility PG&E Corp.

A basic tenet of bankruptcy law, premised on the legal separateness of a debtor prior to filing for bankruptcy and the estate created upon a bankruptcy filing, is that prepetition debts are generally treated differently than debts incurred by the estate, which are generally treated as priority administrative expenses. However, this seemingly straightforward principle is sometimes difficult to apply in cases where a debt technically "arose" or "was incurred" prepetition, but does not became payable until sometime during the bankruptcy case. A ruling recently handed down by the U.S.

In most civil litigation, a party typically has no right to an appeal until the entire case is fully and finally decided as to all parties. The United States Supreme Court recently made clear, however, that bankruptcy litigation is different than most civil litigation when it unanimously held that a bankruptcy court’s order denying relief from the automatic stay is a final appealable order. SeeRitzen Group, Inc. v. Jackson Masonry, LLC, ___U.S.___, 205 L.Ed.2d 419, 422 (2020).

Kilpatrick Townsend’s Paul Rosenblatt and David Posner, bankruptcy partners, and Marc Lieberstein, a brand licensing and franchise partner, recently published an article in the New York State Bar Association Intellectual Property Section Bright

In 2019, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the finality of an asset sale previously approved by the bankruptcy court, providing valuable precedent in support of this core aspect of Chapter 11 practice. Fulmer v. Fifth Third Equip. Fin. Co. et al. (In re Veg Liquidation, Inc.), 931 F.3d 730 (8th Cir. 2019)

In Ritzen Group, Inc. v. Jackson Masonry, LLC, 589 U.S. ___ (Jan. 14, 2020), the Supreme Court (the Court) agreed with the majority of circuit courts and unanimously held that an order unreservedly, that is, without prejudice or condition, adjudicating relief from the automatic stay of 11 U.S.C. § 362(a) is final and any appeal must be filed within the 14 day period under Rule 8002.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued an opinion on December 24, 2019, In re Homebanc Mortgage Crop., No. 18-2887, 2019 WL 7161215(3rd Cir. De. 24, 2019) that has significant consequences for participants in repurchases transactions. The court affirmed the lower court judgment, that the securities had been liquidated in good faith.

Facts