The Sixth Circuit is one of only five federal appellate courts to institute a bankruptcy appellate panel under 28 U.S.C. § 158(b). (The others are the First, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth circuits.) As the bankruptcy appellate panel is unfamiliar to many non-bankruptcy attorneys, this post will review the Sixth Circuit’s bankruptcy appellate panel.
An article by the National Underwriter Company discusses a recent Moody’s report that asbestos claims are again on the rise after years of declining or flat claims.1 This has led several insurers to increase their asbestos reserves and Moody’s views this trend as a warning flag for the property and casualty insurance industry as a whole.
Introduction
The ability of a bankruptcy court to reorder the priority of claims or interests by means of equitable subordination or recharacterization of debt as equity is generally recognized. Even so, the Bankruptcy Code itself expressly authorizes only the former of these two remedies. Although common law uniformly acknowledges the power of a court to recast a claim asserted by a creditor as an equity interest in an appropriate case, the Bankruptcy Code is silent upon the availability of the remedy in a bankruptcy case.
The Bottom Line:
In a victory for secured creditors, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently held inRiver Road Hotel Partners, LLC v. Amalgamated Bank (In re River Road Hotel Partners, LLC), 2011 WL 2547615 (7th Cir. June 28, 2011), that a dissenting class of secured lenders cannot be deprived of the right to credit-bid its claims under a chapter 11 plan that proposes an auction sale of the lenders’ collateral free and clear of liens.
Recently, the Third Circuit held that withdrawal liability triggered after a bankruptcy filing date may be apportioned to pre- and post-petition service for the debtor, and that the withdrawal liability attributable to post-petition service may be entitled to priority over general unsecured claims under the Bankruptcy Code. Employers that participate in a multiemployer pension plan should determine the claims impact of withdrawal in light of this court decision and also assess whether filing for bankruptcy protection outside of the Third Circuit is appropriate.
A secured creditor's option to credit bid its claim where its collateral is to be sold under a chapter 11 plan is an important protection to ensure that the creditor's collateral is not sold for less than its actual value. Rather than accepting the cash generated by a low bid, the creditor can submit its own bid, up to the amount of its secured claim, and recover its collateral instead. This traditionally recognized right was upset by two fairly recent circuit court decisions, one from the Fifth Circuit and one from the Third Circuit. In re Pacific Lumber Co., 584 F.3d 229 (5th Cir.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently affirmed a bankruptcy court’s decision refusing to confirm debtors’ reorganization plan that included auction procedures that forbade secured creditors from “credit bidding” for the assets. Inre River Road Hotel Partners, LLC, No. 10-3597, 2011 WL 2547615 (7th Cir. June 28, 2011). In that case, the debtors (owners of various hotel properties) proposed a plan of reorganization that included auctioning certain properties encumbered by security interests.
The Seventh Circuit recently weighed in on the issue of whether a secured creditor has a right to credit bid at the sale of its collateral in connection with a chapter 11 plan of reorganization. In its decision in In re River Road Hotel Partners, LLC, Case Nos. 10-3597 & 10- 3598 (7th Cir. June 28, 2011), the Seventh Circuit split with decisions of the Third and Fifth Circuit Courts of Appeal holding that secured creditors have no such right to credit bid, raising the prospect that the issue may be ripe for review by the United States Supreme Court.