The Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded an Oregon bankruptcy court’s order designating recently acquired claims of a secured creditor for bad faith, holding that a bad faith finding requires “something more.” Specifically, the Court found that a bankruptcy court may not designate claims for bad faith simply because (1) a creditor offers to purchase only a subset of available claims in order to block a plan of reorganization, and/or (2) blocking the plan will adversely impact the remaining creditors.Pacific Western Bank, et al. v.
Under section 1111(b) of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, a non-recourse secured creditor that holds “a claim secured by a lien on property of the estate” is granted recourse against the bankruptcy estate upon the filing of a chapter 11 bankruptcy petition. But what happens when there has been a post-petition foreclosure on such property, so that it is no longer part of the estate and the liens have been extinguished? Can the creditor still use section 1111(b) to assert a claim against the bankruptcy estate? The Ninth Circuit answered no in Matsan v.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently held that a court cannot extinguish a secured creditor’s state-law security interests for failure to file a proof of claim during the administration of an equity receivership over entities involved in a Ponzi scheme.
A copy of the opinion in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Wells Fargo Bank is available at: Link to Opinion.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York recently held that a confirmable Chapter 13 plan cannot both “vest” title to real property and “surrender” that property to a secured lender, and that the secured lender may refuse to accept the vesting in satisfaction of its claim.
Thus, the Court held that a debtor may not force the transfer of title in collateral to a secured creditor in satisfaction of the secured creditor’s claim, without the consent of the secured creditor.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently held that section 506(c) of the Bankruptcy Code, 11 U.S.C. § 506(c), permits a trustee to recover from a secured creditor the expenses the trustee incurred while maintaining a property during bankruptcy.
A copy of the opinion is available at: Link to Opinion
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in a case of first impression, recently held that section 1328(f) of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA), which bars so-called “Chapter 20” debtors from receiving a discharge at the conclusion of their Chapter 13 reorganization if they received a Chapter 7 discharge within four years of filing the petition for Chapter 13 relief, does not prevent a debtor from voiding a secured creditor’s lien under section 506(d) of the Bankruptcy Code.
The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida recently held that, at a minimum, “surrender” under Bankruptcy Code §§ 521 and 1325 means a debtor cannot take an overt act that impedes a secured creditor from foreclosing its interest in secured property.
In so holding, the Court found that actively contesting a post-bankruptcy foreclosure case is inconsistent with a “surrender” of the property.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently held that a secured creditor must file its proof of claim no later than the 90-day deadline under Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 3002(c) in order to receive distributions under a Chapter 13 plan of reorganization.
A copy of the opinion is available here: Link to Opinion.
Administrators can be validly appointed to a company by the holder of a floating charge which was given by the company in breach of a negative pledge in favour of an existing secured creditor and even if, both at the time of the purported creation of that floating charge and on the day of the purported appointment of administrators, the company had no assets which were the subject of the floating charge.
A number of changes have been made to insolvency procedure to remove various discrepancies and controversial practices: