On Sunday, May 1st, Energy Future Holdings Corp. (“EFH”) filed a new joint chapter 11 plan of reorganization and disclosure statement (the “New Plan”) after plans to fund EFH’s exit from bankruptcy by selling its Oncor power distribution business failed.

BACKGROUND

Earlier this year, we covered Judge Shelley Chapman’s ruling in the Sabine bankruptcy, permitting the Debtors to reject a handful of gathering and other midstream agreements. Previously, Judge Chapman permitted rejection on the grounds that the Debtors exercised their reasonable business judgement in doing so.

Venue has long been a contentious topic highlighted by cases such as Enron and WorldCom to the more recent venue battle in Caesars. Recently, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Kansas addressed this issue, and declined to transfer a pending bankruptcy case to the District of Delaware where cases involving the debtor’s indirect parent company and other affiliates were pending.

The US Court of Appeals recently decided in In re Tribune Co Fraudulent Conveyance Litigation(1) that Section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code(2) impliedly pre-empts state fraudulent conveyance laws that creditors might otherwise use to unwind payments made by a corporate debtor to public shareholders in a pre-bankruptcy leveraged buy-out.

On April 25, 2016, Judge Glenn of the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York issued a memorandum in an adversary proceeding in which neither of the two non-debtor parties apparently wanted to be in the Southern District of New York.

In some good news for commercial vendors, the Supreme Court of Texas recently ruled that payments for ordinary services provided to an insolvent customer are not recoverable as fraudulent transfers, even if the customer turns out to be a “Ponzi scheme” instead of a legitimate business.

CentsAbility: Creditors' Rights Law Update

The Fourth Circuit has held that in a case where the rate of interest on a residential mortgage loan had been increased upon default, a Chapter 13 Plan proposing to “cure” default under 11 U.S.C. §1322(b) is an impermissible modification barred by §1322(b)(2).

As we discussed in a prior alert, in September 2015 the Teamsters’ Central States Pension Fund submitted a proposed “rescue plan” to the U.S. Department of Treasury (Treasury). The Central States Pension Fund is severely underfunded and the rescue plan would have allowed the fund to reduce participant benefits in order to avoid insolvency.

On May 5, 2016, SRC Liquidation, LLC International Holdings, LLC (“Liquidating Debtor”), filed approximately 137 complaints seeking the avoidance and recovery of allegedly preferential and fraudulent transfers under Sections 547 and 550 of the Bankruptcy Code. The Liquidating Debtor also seeks to disallow claims of such preference defendants under Sections 502(d) and (j) of the Bankruptcy Code.

Summary of Holding