Can you really lease a cow?

According to the Sixth Circuit, the answer is “yes.” Dairy cattle leasing is an increasingly popular method for producers to add to their herds while conserving capital for other purposes. Leasing is particularly attractive for thinly capitalized producers who wish to spread their fixed costs across more cows.

Creditors are generally aware that a debtor may shield from collection by creditors assets that the debtor holds in Individual Retirement Account (IRA). However, as more IRA owners die with substantial assets remaining in their accounts, a new question has arisen: Can a debtor exempt an IRA that she inherited from someone other than her spouse?

New value is an important defense to preference liability under the Bankruptcy Code. It allows a preference defendant to relieve their preference liability on a dollar-for-dollar basis for the value provided to the debtor prior to the bankruptcy case.

In a very important decision, the Eighth Circuit recently addressed how the new value defense to preference liability should be applied in three-party payment arrangement.

The opinion by the Delaware bankruptcy court in In re Fisker Auto. Holdings, Inc., raised alarm bells for secured creditors throughout the country. Many worry that it will diminish the valuable right of secured creditors to credit bid, which is the right to bid up to the amount of a secured claim without paying cash.

What is the legal, political, and financial fallout of Detroit’s highly publicized Chapter 9 bankruptcy? That was the central question in a Nov. 7 panel discussion in St. Louis hosted by Thompson Coburn. Below are the issues discussed by Thompson Coburn attorneys, and leaders from St. Louis’ business and financial communities.

Missouri receivership law should not simply mimic the federal Bankruptcy Code. At least one Court of Appeals has suggested that the federal bankruptcy laws may preempt a state receivership statute that goes too far in creating a collective procedure to distribute assets to creditors.

Note: This post is part of a four-part series on the Credit Report Blog. Click here to view all related posts.

In our last post, we gave a broad overview of Missouri receivership law and why it needs to change. In the next two posts, we’ll dive deeper, provide background on receiverships, and detail specific reforms that could provide much-needed updates to the process.

Types of receiverships

In our previous post, we provided background on receiverships and detailed specific reforms that could provide much-needed updates to the process. Today we’re continuing to look at those possible reforms.

Conduct of case and notice to creditors

Owners of Chapter 11 bankruptcy debtors have long devised schemes to try to hold on to their ownership interests while stiffing the debtors’ creditors. In the past, owners attempted to do this by proposing reorganization plans that paid creditors only a portion of what they are owed while selling all of the equity in the reorganized debtor to the owner for a nominal new investment.