As noted in a recent Distressing Matters post, the United States Supreme Court in In re Jevic Holding Corp. held that debtors cannot use structured dismissals to make payments to creditors in violation of ordinary bankruptcy distribution priority rules.
On May 1, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Merit Management Group v. FTI Consulting, No. 16-784, on appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals from the Seventh Circuit. The Court's decision could resolve a circuit split as to whether section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code can shield from fraudulent conveyance attack transfers made through financial institutions where such financial institutions are merely "conduits" in the relevant transaction.
This Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected General Motors’ petition for a writ of certiorari, which GM filed in an attempt to overturn a ruling by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals related to the sale of substantially all of GM’s assets in bankruptcy. When we last visited the case in a prior blog post, GM’s petition to the Supreme Court was still pending.
On May 1, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Merit Management Group v. FTI Consulting, No. 16-784, on appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals from the Seventh Circuit. See FTI Consulting, Inc. v. Merit Management Group, LP, 830 F.3d 690 (7th Cir. 2016) (a discussion of the Seventh Circuit's ruling is available here).
Last December, we updated you that the Supreme Court was considering whether to grant review of In re The Village at Lakeridge, LLC, 814 F.3d 993 (9th Cir. 2016). Our original post is here. On March 27, 2017, the Supreme Court granted review of Village at Lakeridge, but only as to one question presented, the most boring one in our view.
When the real estate market and financial markets tumbled during 2007-2008, the fallout was felt by financial institutions from large multi-billion dollar banks to small Community Banks. As these banks struggled to stay alive, a trend emerged for bank holding companies to market and sell a distressed bank through Section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code. This alternative was utilized in many instances as opposed to a traditional “reorganization plan” or takeover by the FDIC.
In a highly anticipated decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on March 22, 2017, in Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corp., No. 15-649, 2017 BL 89680 (U.S. Mar. 22, 2017), that, without the consent of affected creditors, bankruptcy courts may not approve "structured dismissals" providing for distributions which "deviate from the basic priority rules that apply under the primary mechanisms the [Bankruptcy] Code establishes for final distributions of estate value in business bankruptcies."
In 2015, Distressing Matters reported on the Third Circuit’s decision in In re Jevic Holding Corp., wherein that panel ruled that, in rare circumstances, bankruptcy courts may approve the distribution of settlement proceeds in a manner that violates the Bankruptcy Code’s statutory priority scheme.
The decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 ruling,1 to vacate the rulings by the District Court of the Southern District of New York in the Marblegate dispute, reopens the traditional flexibility that companies have had for consent solicitations as part of liability management transactions, although some uncertainty may continue to persist.
Background
In Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding, 580 U.S. __(2017), decided on March 22, the U.S. Supreme Court held that, without the consent of impaired creditors, a bankruptcy court cannot approve a "structured dismissal" that provides for distributions deviating from the ordinary priority scheme of the Bankruptcy Code. The ruling reverses the decisions of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, and the U.S.