With each extension, the scope of the suspension of the obligation to file for insolvency which was first introduced in March 2020 became more and more limited.
Introduction
In January 2021, Law 14.112/20 introduced a new section into the Brazilian Bankruptcy Law (the "BBL") regulating financing for companies which are the subject of a court-supervised reorganisation.
In a recent opinion issued in the Cinemex theater bankruptcy cases, In re Cinemex USA Real Estate Holdings, Inc., Case No. 20-14695-BKC-LMI, 2021 WL 564486 (Bankr. S.D. Fla. Jan. 27, 2021), Judge Laurel M. Isicoff of the U.S.
Perhaps not unexpectedly, on February 25, 2021, a New York bankruptcy court dismissed the involuntary bankruptcy petition brought earlier in the month by three student loan borrowers against Navient Solutions (see our prior post on the borrowers’ petition here). Navient is the student loan servicing arm of Navient Corporation, one of the world’s largest student loan-originators.
In what is the third, sanctioned restructuring plan since the introduction of Part 26A Companies Act 2006 in June 2020, the previously untested “cross-class cram-down” mechanism has now been applied for the first time. Cross-class cram-down being the ability to impose a restructuring plan on dissenting stakeholders whether or not those dissenting creditors form part of the same class as the approving creditors.
On February 8, 2021, three student loan borrowers filed an involuntary petition against Navient Solutions LLC in New York bankruptcy court seeking to force Navient into bankruptcy.[1] Navient Solutions is the loan servicing arm of Navient Corporation, a student loan originator which manages approximately $300 billion in student loan debt for more than 12 million borrowers.
Just after 5:00 p.m. Central Time on February 23, 2021, Belk, Inc. and its affiliates filed chapter 11 petitions in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, along with a proposed “prepackaged” plan of reorganization. Before midnight, the US Trustee objected to Belk’s plan, and, by 8:00 a.m. the next day, the parties were in court to decide plan confirmation. Two hours later, Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur confirmed the plan, and it became effective that afternoon, just 20 hours after the Chapter 11 cases were filed.
In a January 2021 decision issued in the re-opened United Refining Company1 bankruptcy case, Judge Lopez of the Southern District of Texas Bankruptcy Court addressed when a tort claim is deemed to arise for purposes
The National Rifle Association (“NRA”), along with its wholly owned Texas subsidiary, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on January 15, 2021 in the Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Texas. The case already has presented several threshold issues and challenges that are of interest to both bankruptcy practitioners and the market as a whole.
Background
Section 546(e) of the US Bankruptcy Code, which Congress enacted to promote stability and finality in financial markets, provides a safe harbor against the avoidance of certain securities transactions. Since the safe harbor’s inclusion in the original Bankruptcy Code, Congress repeatedly has expanded its protections to a growing assortment of financial transactions involving an increasing array of parties, whose involvement in the transaction may give rise to a defense to certain avoidance actions, including constructive fraudulent transfer claims.