This morning, the Supreme Court issued its hotly anticipated decision in Executive Benefits Insurance Agency v.

Courts Begin to Wrestle with the Impact of on a Debtor’s Ability to Recover Estate Property

On May 4, Judge Vincent Bricetti of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a ruling in the Momentive Performance Materials cases affirming the bankruptcy court’s confirmation rulings.  Key themes raised in this case of interest to distressed investors and addressed in Judge Bricetti’s ruling include 

Can a waiver of rights ever be beneficial to the person granting the waiver?  Yes.  In In re Adamson Apparel, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held, in a 2-1 

In a recent 

Judge Drain’s recent bench rulings in Momentive Performance Materials in 2014 generated a great deal of controversy in the distressed debt world.  Distressed investors, lenders, and commentators have questioned whether the Momentive rulings will lead to an industry trend in which debtors seek to cram down their secured lenders to take advantage of the ability to do so at below market interest rates.  

Today’s blog article, which looks at the ability of a debtor to assume, assign, or reject oil and gas “leases” under section 365 of the Bankruptcy Code, is the third in the Weil Bankruptcy Blog series, “Drilling Down,” where we review issues at the intersection of the oil and gas industry and bankruptcy law.

Like many of our readers, we at the Bankruptcy Blog spent our holiday breaks curled up with our copies of the American Bankruptcy Institute Commission to Study the Reform of Chapter 11 Final Report and Recommendations, which by now are quite dog-eared.

In Czyzewski v. Sun Capital Partners, Inc.1, the United States District Court for the District of Delaware affirmed a Bankruptcy Court determination that a private equity firm was not liable for its subsidiary portfolio company’s failure to provide adequate notice of a plant closing under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act).

When evaluating a debtor’s bankruptcy or restructuring options, determining how to increase or preserve the debtor’s liquidity is crucial to the analysis. Well-advised debtors with significant labor liabilities will need to explore whether attaining cost savings through rejection of their collective bargaining agreements is a viable alternative.