The next time you negotiate a settlement payment with a financially troubled party, you may want to keep in mind an ancient term related to livestock herding: earmarking. The concept may be somewhat antiquated, but the Second Circuit has recently confirmed that it is still viable – and can help you keep the settlement payment if the other party later files for bankruptcy.
Although almost eight years have lapsed since the chapter 11 cases of Tulsa, Oklahoma-based SemCrude L.P.
On the afternoon of July 18, 2013, the City of Detroit filed its highly anticipated petition for relief under Chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy Code in the Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. This marks the largest municipal bankruptcy filing in United States history.1As a result of the Chapter 9 filing, all actions by creditors to collect prepetition claims against the City are enjoined through the imposition of an automatic stay, except for the application of special revenues pledged to indebtedness.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit recently ruled that a perpetual, royalty-free, and exclusive trademark licensing agreement qualified as an executory contract subject to assumption or rejection under section 365 of the Bankruptcy Code. The Eighth Circuit’s ruling is seemingly at odds with a 2010 decision by the Third Circuit which found an extremely similar licensing agreement to be non-executory. These decisions may signal a circuit split on the issue, and in any event, create uncertainty for licensees who have acquired perpetual licenses in connection
On July 9, 2012, Judge Mary F. Walrath of the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware disallowed a claim for rejection damages related to a real estate development agreement, because the claim had been released upon the termination of an LLC Agreement, and the underlying ground lease never came into existence. In re Magna Entm’t Corp., 2012 Bankr. LEXIS 3089 (Bankr. D. Del. July 9, 2012).
Background
The Supreme Court held 8-0 that section 1129(b)(2) of the bankruptcy code requires that if a debtor proposes to sell property under a plan of reorganization it must permit secured lenders to submit credit bids in the sale process. The outcome is consistent with our views of the rights of secured lenders under appropriate bankruptcy practice – however, the Supreme Court’s analysis eschews policy concerns and focuses almost exclusively on the plain language of the statute and applicable canons of statutory construction.
Introduction
On May 5, 2009, Judge James Peck, the Bankruptcy Judge in the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy cases, held that the safe harbor provisions of the Bankruptcy Code do not override the mutuality requirements for setoff under section 553(a) of the Bankruptcy Code. As a consequence, the Bankruptcy Court prohibited Swedbank, a non-debtor counter party to a swap agreement, from setting off pre-petition claims against Lehman against funds collected for Lehman’s account postpetition. See In re Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc., Bankr. Case No. 08-13555 (JMP) (Bankr. S.D.N.Y.
Introduction
The High Court1 in England has confirmed the validity under English law of contractual provisions common in structured finance transactions which subordinate payments to a swap counterparty in circumstances where the swap counterparty has defaulted on its obligations under the terms of the relevant swap agreement.
The Judgment
Parties
Introduction