Practitioners will be pleased to know that the NSW Supreme Court has provided clarity on the order of priority for employee debts and secured creditor claims.

The matter, In the matter of Spitfire Corporation Limited (in liquidation) and Aspirio Pty Ltd (in liquidation), involved the liquidators of two insolvent companies (Spitfire Corporation Ltd and Aspirio Pty Ltd) seeking directions under s 90-15 of the Insolvency Practice Schedule (Corporations).

Does a rotten tree produce good fruit?

That’s the bankruptcy issue before the U.S. Supreme Court in Siegel v. Fitzgerald, where the Question is this:

“Whether the Bankruptcy Judgeship Act violates the uniformity requirement of the Bankruptcy Clause by increasing quarterly fees solely in U.S. Trustee districts.”

Note:

BUSINESS RESTRUCTURING REVIEW VOL. 21 • NO.

The Bankruptcy Protector

The Bankruptcy Protector

A Petition for certiorari is before the U.S. Supreme Court in Speech & Language Center, LLC, and Chryssoula Marinos-Arsenis v. Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey

Petition’s Question

The Question presented in the Petition is this:

How much precedential value does an 1885 opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court deserve on a bankruptcy discharge issue?

That’s a central question in the Petition for a Writ of Certiorari before the U.S. Supreme Court in Bartenwerfer v. Buckly, Case No. 21-908 (“Distributed for Conference of 4/29/2022”).

Facts of the Case [Fn. 1]

The Supreme Court recently denied certiorari in Picard v. Citibank, in which the petitioner sought review of a Second Circuit decision on a seemingly obscure point of law: the pleading burden for “good faith” under Section 550 of the Bankruptcy Code. The Second Circuit’s decision is part of, and highlights, a larger, systemic problem in the evolution of bankruptcy law over the last decade—the multiplication of trustee-friendly interpretations of the Bankruptcy Code that, when combined, leave innocent subsequent transferees unfairly vulnerable to meritless clawback suits.

In a few months, Justice Stephen G. Breyer is set to retire from the U.S. Supreme Court.

The bankruptcy world will miss him.

The reason for discussing this subject now (instead of waiting for the retirement to actually happen) is this:

• The triumph of Justice Breyer’s Footnote 2 in Merit Management, as accomplished by a denial of certiorari on 2/22/2022.

What follows is a summary of four important Supreme Court bankruptcy opinions in which Justice Breyer played a significant role—starting with the Footnote 2 opinion.

The latest chapter in the Mainzeal saga played out last week with the Supreme Court hearing the directors' appeal (and the liquidators' cross-appeal) against the Court of Appeal's decision in Yan v Mainzeal Property and Construction Ltd (in liq) [2021] NZCA 99.