Our May 22 post reported on the Supreme Court’s May 20 decision in Mission Product Holdings, Inc. v.

It’s time for a primer on the Wagoner rule and the in pari delicto defense, two concepts that arise when a debtor’s fraud leads to bankruptcy. Trustees who replace a debtor’s management often sue those involved in the corporation’s misdeeds. But the Wagoner rule and the in pari delicto defense can shield third-party defendants from liability.

As we reported last year, on August 10, 2017, Judge Swain entered an order establishing procedures to govern resolution of the Commonwealth-COFINA dispute (the “Resolution Stipulation”).

Our June 28 post discussed the petition for certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court seeking review of the First Circuit’s January 12 decision in Mission Product Holdings, Inc. v. Tempnology, LLC.[i] We noted that the respondent’s response to the petition was due on July 12.

This post reviews some concepts concerning executory contracts. The ground covered will be familiar to insolvency experts and should be insightful for readers who don’t specialize in U.S. bankruptcy law.

This post examines an interesting intersection between bankruptcy and tax laws: if a corporation terminates its Subchapter S status pre-bankruptcy, can a bankruptcy trustee bring fraudulent transfer claims against the corporation’s shareholders to recover resulting tax refunds they receive? One bankruptcy court recently dismissed such fraudulent transfer claims on the ground that the corporation’s S status wasn’t property of the debtor’s bankruptcy estate, and thus the trustee couldn’t pursue the claims.

The long-running litigation spawned by the leveraged buyout of Tribune Company, which closed in December 2007, and the subsequent bankruptcy case commenced on December 8, 2008[1] has challenged the maxim that “there’s nothing new under the sun” even for this writer with four decades of bankruptcy practice behind him.

The Bankruptcy Code provides that a Chapter 11 plan of reorganization may be confirmed over the opposition of a class of secured creditors whose secured claims are not being paid in full only if it provides one of the following1--

“[E]nsnared between his involvement in a business that is legal under the laws of Arizona but illegal under federal law,” one debtor’s chapter 13 petition was recently dismissed due to his undisputed violations of the Controlled Substances Act.

In bankruptcy as in federal jurisprudence generally, to characterize something with the near-epithet of “federal common law” virtually dooms it to rejection.