On February 27, 2018, the United States Supreme Court in a significant ruling held in Merit Management Group, LP v. FTI Consulting, Inc. that transfers of property of a debtor in which financial institutions are mere conduits or intermediaries may be avoidable. The Court ruled that the safe harbor provisions of section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code do not protect such transfers from avoidance.
The Bankruptcy Code allows trustees, as well as debtors-in-possession and in some circumstances creditors’ committees, to set aside and recover certain transfers for the benefit of the bankruptcy estate. The purpose of the avoidance powers is to maximize funds available for creditors and to ensure equality of distribution among creditors’ claims. The avoidance powers are not without bounds, however, as the Code sets forth a number of exceptions — most notably, the so-called “securities contract safe harbor” under Section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code.
Prior to the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Czyewski v. Jevic Holding Corp., 137 S.Ct. 973, 197 L.Ed.2d 398 (2017), one way to reshuffle the deck chairs on the titanic in a case with too little money, no more assets and too many creditors was for the parties to divvy up the remains through a structured dismissal under Section 349 of the Bankruptcy Code.
Last week, the unanimous Supreme Court clarified that the “clearing and settlement” exception to a bankruptcy trustee’s avoiding powers covers only payments “to,” not merely through, financial market participants.
On February 27, 2018, the United States Supreme Court resolved a circuit split regarding the proper application of the safe harbor set forth in section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code, a provision that prohibits the avoidance of a transfer if the transfer was made in connection with a securities contract and made by or to (or for the benefit of) certain qualified entities, including a financial institution.
Section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code shields certain transfers involving settlement payments and other payments in connection with securities contracts (for example, payment for stock) made to certain financial intermediaries, such as banks, from avoidance as a fraudulent conveyance or preferential transfer. In recent years, several circuit courts interpreted 546(e) as applying to a transfer that flows through a financial intermediary, even if the ultimate recipient of the transfer would not qualify for the protection of 546(e).
On February 27, 2018, the Supreme Court handed down a unanimous opinion, authored by Justice Sotomayor, resolving a Circuit split over the interpretation of Section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code, the “safe harbor” provision that shields specified types of payments “made by or to (or for the benefit of)” a financial institution from avoidance on fraudulent transfer grounds.
On February 27, 2018, a unanimous Supreme Court held in Merit Management Group, LP v. FTI Consulting, Inc. (link here) that an otherwise-avoidable transfer is not subject to the safe harbor in Section 546(e) (which provides, in relevant part, a trustee may not avoid a transfer that is a “settlement payment . . . made by or to (or for the benefit of) a . . . financial institution” or that “is a transfer made by or to (or for the benefit of) a . . .
On February 27, 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Merit Management Group, LP v. FTI Consulting, Inc. The key issue in the case was the scope of Section 546(e) of the bankruptcy code which insulates certain transactions from a bankruptcy trustee’s statutory avoidance powers. A bankruptcy trustee may avoid many types of pre-petition transfers, including preferential payments made to creditors within 90 days of a bankruptcy petition and transfers made for less than reasonably equivalent value completed within two years of a bankruptcy filing.