Three years ago, in Stern v.

Legal Fees Earned by Departed Partners in Now-Defunct Law Firms Determined Not to Be Property of the Bankrupt Firm

HIGHLIGHTS:

Latham & Watkins operates worldwide as a limited liability partnership organized under the laws of the State of Delaware (USA) with affiliated limited liability partnerships conducting the practice in the United
Kingdom, France, Italy and Singapore and as affiliated partnerships conducting the practice in Hong Kong and Japan. The Law Office of Salman M. Al-Sudairi is Latham & Watkins associated office in the

The recent Eleventh Circuit case of In re Brown, 746 F.3d 1236 (2014) held that 11 U.S.C. § 506(a)(2)'s replacement value standard applies even when a Chapter 7 or 13 debtor surrenders collateral under 11 U.S.C. § 1325(a)(5)(C). The Eleventh Circuit's decision in In re Brown has an important role in how personal property collateral will be valued in Chapter 7 and 13 cases in the Eleventh Circuit and thus its reasoning is important for creditors to understand.

Creditors contemplating the bold step of commencing an involuntary bankruptcy case against a putative debtor may wish to consider a recent decision of the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Minnesota Court, 

Last Friday, the Sixth Circuit postponed oral argument in some of the pending cases in the appeal from the bankruptcy judge’s decision that Detroit was entitled to creditor protection under Chapter 9 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code and could try to alter the terms of workers’ pensions. The postponement was apparently granted to allow various pension groups to settle with the city.

In re Elk Grove Village Petroleum, 510 B.R. 594 (Bankr. N.D. Ill. 2014) –

Canons of statutory construction are used frequently to resolve ambiguities in the Bankruptcy Code. In 

The United States District Court for the District of Delaware, on July 21, 2014, held that an indenture trustee’s late filing of senior claims did not waive the lenders’ contractual subordination rights, reversing the bankruptcy court. In re Franklin Bank Corporation, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 98327 (D. Del. July 21, 2014). Nor did the senior trustee’s late filing show inequitable conduct warranting equitable subordination of the tardily filed senior claims to timely filed junior claims.

Section 506(a)(1) of the Bankruptcy Code provides common-sense instruction that the allowed amount of a secured claim is equal to the value of the collateral securing the claim and that a claim is unsecured to the extent the claim exceeds such collateral value.  The section goes on to provide that the value of collateral ”shall be determined in light of the purpose of the valuation and of the proposed disposition or use of such property, and in conjunction with any hearing on