The Third Circuit Court of Appeals dealt a blow to secured creditors in its recent decision holding that a debtor may prohibit a lender from credit bidding on its collateral in connection with a sale of assets under a plan of reorganization. In the case of In re Philadelphia Newspapers, LLC, No. 09-4266 (3d Cir. Mar. 22, 2010), the court, in a 2-1 decision, determined that a plan that provides secured lenders with the “indubitable equivalent” of their secured interest in an asset is not required to permit credit bidding when that asset is sold.

In 1999 the Third Circuit Court of Appeals rendered its decision in Calpine Corp. v. O’Brien Environmental Energy, Inc. (In re O’Brien Environmental Energy, Inc.), 181 F.2d 527, denying Calpine Corporation’s request for the payment of a break-up fee after Calpine lost its effort to acquire the assets of O’Brien Environmental Energy out of bankruptcy.

The October 15, 2009 decision of the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware in In re Pillowtex opens the door for creditors in the Third Circuit to increase their "new value" preference defense under the "subsequent advance" approach.In re Pillowtex, No. 03-12339 (Bankr. D. Del. filed Oct. 15, 2009).

A trustee’s power to avoid preference payments is circumscribed by the statutory defenses set forth in section 547(c) of the Bankruptcy Code. The "subsequent new value" defense set forth in section 547(c)(4) has three well-established elements:

On May 4, 2016, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that a bankruptcy settlement in the form of a tender offer did not violate the principles of the bankruptcy process. See opinion here.

In a decision last month in Whyte v. SemGroup Litig. Trust (In re Semcrude L.P.), No. 14-4356, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 7690 (3d Cir. Apr. 28, 2016), the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that proving that a debtor was left with unreasonably small capital will not turn on either hindsight or a “speculative exercise” based on what might have happened if certain things were known at the time.

Did Trump win again? Yes, but this time it was not “The Donald” but was instead the casino operator Trump Entertainment Resorts, Inc.

A majority of today’s large Chapter 11 cases are structured as quick Section 363 sales of all the debtor’s assets followed by confirmation of a plan of liquidation, dismissal of the case, or a conversion to a Chapter 7. The purchaser in the sale is often one of the debtor’s prepetition secured or undersecured lenders, which may also act as the debtor-inpossession (DIP) lender and purchase the debtor’s assets through a credit bid, with no cash consideration.

We have discussed plan releases in prior posts. Oftentimes, disputes involving plan releases revolve around whether, and in what contexts, third-party releases in plans are appropriate. Recently, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals addressed the relatively unique question of whether releases in a confirmed plan are binding upon post-confirmation purchasers of the debtor’s stock.

On August 4, 2017, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals issued its ruling in Varela v. AE Liquidation, Inc. (In re AE Liquidation, Inc.), 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 14359 (3d Cir.

In an opinion by Judge Roth issued on March 30, 2017, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that two suppliers who had sold electrical materials to a bankrupt contractor had violated the automatic stay by asserting a construction lien against the owner of the development where the contractor had installed the materials supplied.