The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently held that the “no fair ground of doubt” standard established by the Supreme Court of the United States in Taggart v. Lorenzen, a case involving alleged violation of a Chapter 7 discharge order, governed civil contempt proceedings for violation of a confirmed reorganization plan under Chapter 11.

After more than a decade, litigation resulting from the failed leveraged buyout (LBO) of media giant Tribune Company has finally drawn to a close. On Feb. 22, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the latest decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in In re Tribune Co. Fraudulent Conveyance Litig., 10 F.4th 147 (2d Cir.

Takeaways

In its top consumer credit law decisions of 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit determined that settlement of an FDCPA claim does not trigger an attorney fee award, examined third-party contact as a “communication” under the FDCPA, and ruled there was no “partial surrender” of collateral in a Chapter 13 plan.

Tejero v. Portfolio Recovery Assocs., LLC, 993 F.3d 393 (5th Cir. 2021)

A recent decision by the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirming the decisions of both the bankruptcy and district courts, provides an interesting analysis of “willful” violations of the automatic stay under Section 362 of the Bankruptcy Code. See California Coast Univ. v. Aleckna (In re Aleckna), No. 20-1309 (3d Cir. 2021).

In Acquisition 362 v. United States, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) again waded into the intersection of the AD/CVD law and Customs law. Specifically, the court ruled that a protest of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (Customs) decision must be filed within 180 days of liquidation. This is not a novel decision, but as always in AD/CVD cases with Customs, the details are crucial.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit wasted no time getting the new year off to a roaring start through its ruling in In re LTL Mgmt., LLC, Case No. 22-2003, 2023 WL 1098189 (3d Cir. Jan. 30, 2023). In LTL, the Third Circuit affirmatively dismissed the so-called “Texas Two-Step” by which a solvent corporation had tried to cabin potentially billions of dollars of mass tort liability through an internal corporate restructuring.

In that ruling, the Third Circuit determined that:

It may be fair to say that non-US entities involved in a chapter 15 case, the mechanism through which US courts recognize foreign insolvency proceedings, do not anticipate having to litigate claims raised in the chapter 15 case outside of the bankruptcy court. This may be due in large part to 28 U.S.C. § 1334(c)(1), an abstention statute applicable in chapter 15 bankruptcy proceedings.

In its recent opinion arising out of the Orexigen Therapeutics Inc.

In In re Palladino, 942 F.3d 55 (1st Cir. 2019), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit addressed whether a debtor receives “reasonably equivalent value” in exchange for paying his adult child’s college tuition. The Palladino court answered this question in the negative, thereby contributing to the growing circuit split regarding the avoidability of debtors’ college tuition payments for their adult children as constructively fraudulent transfers.

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