President Barack Obama gave his imprimatur to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 on July 21. Relatively few of the provisions in the new law implicate the Bankruptcy Code. However, among other things, the law does call on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, in consultation with the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (the "Administrative Office"), to conduct two bankruptcy-related studies.

An oversecured creditor’s right to interest, fees, and related charges as part of its allowed secured claim in a bankruptcy case is well established in U.S. bankruptcy law.

The power to alter the relative priority of claims due to the misconduct of one creditor that causes injury to others is an important tool in the array of remedies available to a bankruptcy court in exercising its broad equitable powers. However, unlike provisions in the Bankruptcy Code that expressly authorize a bankruptcy trustee or chapter 11 debtor-in-possession (“DIP ”) to seek the imposition of equitable remedies, such as lien or transfer avoidance, the statutory authority for equitable subordination—section 510(c)—does not specify exactly who may seek subordination of a claim.

One of the most significant changes to chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in the 2005 amendments was the absolute limit placed on extensions of the exclusivity periods. Courts no longer have the discretion to extend a debtor’s exclusive periods to file and solicit a plan beyond 18 months and 20 months, respectively, after the petition date. Although the legislative history contains no explanation for why this change was made, Congress presumably intended to accelerate the reorganization process or facilitate the prospects for competing plans in large, complex cases.

The Judicial Conference Advisory Committees on Appellate, Bankruptcy, Civil, and Criminal Rules have proposed amendments to their respective rules and forms and have requested that the proposals be circulated to the bench, bar, and public for comment. The public comment period closes on Tuesday, February 17, 2015, at 11:59 p.m.

On July 16, 2014, the Uniform Law Commission (the "Commission") approved a series of amendments to the Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act (the "UFTA"), which is currently in force in 43 states (all states except Alaska, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, South Carolina, and Virginia).

Whether post-death creditor protection is available to inherited IRAs under the 2005 Bankruptcy Act has been the subject of a number of cases decided in the last several years. The argument made by bankruptcy trustees is that, on the death of the IRA owner, the IRA ceases to be “retirement funds” as it is not the retirement funds of the beneficiary. Consequently, the bankruptcy trustees argue that the inherited IRA ceases to have the protection afforded to IRAs under the Bankruptcy Code.

Last April, we updated you that the Supreme Court had granted review of In re The Village at Lakeridge, LLC, 814 F.3d 993 (9th Cir. 2016). Our most recent post is here.

Two recent cases analyzed the misrepresentations of a debtor regarding a single asset and held a written misrepresented value of a single scheduled estate asset would result in nondischargeability under Section 727, and that a verbal misrepresentation of a pre-petition asset to a creditor did not result in an exception to discharge under Section 523.

A recent, and highly publicized, decision from the case formerly known as Sports Authority, In re TSA WD Holdings, Inc. et al., Case No. 16-10527 (MFW), Bankr. D. Del. (Docket #2863, Aug.