We have previously written about Siegel v. Fitzgerald, No. 21-441, the Supreme Court case considering the question of whether the 2018 difference in fees between Bankruptcy Administrator judicial districts and U.S. Trustee judicial districts was consistent with the Constitution’s uniformity requirement for bankruptcy laws.
It’s been a hard year for cryptocurrency. The values of most cryptocurrencies, including major coins such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, have continued to tumble. In fact, the price of one stablecoin, which is a form of cryptocurrency tied to another currency, commodity or financial instrument, de-pegged from its cryptocurrency token and entered into a downward spiral. Ultimately, the stablecoin and the crypto token it was pegged to collapsed, erasing $18 billion of value with it.
In a previous alert, we covered the Delaware Chancery Court’s decision in Stream TV Networks last year.
The Bankruptcy Protector
Bankruptcy Basics for New and Non-Bankruptcy Attorneys
This entry is part of Nelson Mullins’s ongoing “Bankruptcy Basics” blog series that is intended to address foundational aspects of bankruptcy for non-bankruptcy practitioners and professionals. This entry will discuss how ipso facto clauses are treated in bankruptcy.
Imagine you are the vendor to an entity that has just filed for protection under chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. Your contract documents include the following default provision:
“the specter of sanctions and contempt spawns ancillary litigation that often eclipses the issues at the heart of the underlying dispute.”
—From In re A.T. Reynolds & Sons, Inc., 452 B.R. 374, 376 (S.D.N.Y. 2011), reversing a Bankruptcy Court order of contempt and sanctions for lack of “good faith” in a mandated mediation.
In a matter of first impression relating to an important bankruptcy claims administration issue, Judge Sean H. Lane of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, recently denied the ability of a court appointed claims agent to sell and profit from providing direct access to publicly available claims register information. The unsuccessful purchaser of such information was XClaim Inc. (“Xclaim”), a relatively new venture that is seeking to develop a web-based claims trading platform.
The interface between federal bankruptcy law and similar state laws has a long history, going back to at least 1819, when the U.S. Supreme Court rules that a state insolvency law:
The Third Circuit recently affirmed the bankruptcy court's approved retention of the debtor's counsel ("S") when that "law firm dropped an existing client to avoid conflicts that would prevent it from taking on a more lucrative client [i.e., the debtor]." In re Boy Scouts of America, 2022 WL 1634643, *7 (3d Cir. May 24, 2022) (BSA). According to the court, there were "not enough facts to put [the so-called "hot potato" doctrine] into play" and disqualify S under the Rules of Professional Conduct. Id.
The recent crash in cryptocurrency prices has erased nearly $2 trillion in market value and forced three large firms into bankruptcy proceedings in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY): Three Arrows Capital, Voyager Digital, and Celsius Network.
The cryptocurrency hedge fund Three Arrows Capital was the first domino to fall. It suffered heavy losses on trades connected to the collapse of the Terra algorithmic stablecoin, which in turn triggered margin calls and subsequent defaults on over $1 billion in loans.
The interface between federal bankruptcy law and similar state laws has a long history, going back to at least 1819, when the U.S. Supreme Court rules that a state insolvency law: