I. Summary

On June 28, 2012, Judge Allan Gropper of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York declined to appoint an official committee of equity holders in Kodak’s chapter 11 cases.  The bankruptcy court determined that the appointment of an official committee was not warranted at that time, given that the costs to the bankruptcy estates would be substantial and equity’s interests were already represented by other constituencies seeking to maximize value and by a sophisticatedad hoc group of shareholders.  In re Eastman Kodak Company, Case No

On March 26, 2012, Judge Mary F. Walrath of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware refused to rule that, as a matter of law, payments made to satisfy a debtor’s obligations under a letter of credit constitute “settlement payments” protected from avoidance under section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code. EPLG I, LLC v. Citibank, National Association et al. (In re Qimonda Richmond, LLC, et al.), No. 09-10589, 2012 Bankr. LEXIS 1264 (Bankr.

I. Introduction.

On May 5, 2009, Judge James Peck, the Bankruptcy Judge in the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy cases, held that the safe harbor provisions of the Bankruptcy Code do not override the mutuality requirements for setoff under section 553(a) of the Bankruptcy Code. As a consequence, the Bankruptcy Court prohibited Swedbank, a non-debtor counter party to a swap agreement, from setting off pre-petition claims against Lehman against funds collected for Lehman’s account postpetition. See In re Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc., Bankr. Case No. 08-13555 (JMP) (Bankr. S.D.N.Y.

As is now well known, General Motors, Inc. and Chrysler LLC financially restructured themselves with the help of the United States Treasury. These restructurings occurred very quickly – Chrysler and GM each filed for bankruptcy and sold substantially all of their automobile-producing assets to newly created companies2 within approximately forty days. Each company used the bankruptcy process to massively deleverage and free itself from personal injury liability claims.

This week, Representative John Conyers introduced the “Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009” (H.R. 1106) (the “Act”), which has been circulated in advance of a vote by the House of Representatives anticipated as early as today. Additional amendments have been offered to the bill, but it is unclear which, if any, will be incorporated into the final text. It is not expected that the Senate will consider its version of the bill until mid-March.

In COR Route 5 Co. v. Penn Traffic Co.1 (In re Penn Traffic Co), the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that a non-debtor party to an executory contract may not, by fulfilling its contractual obligations post-petition, deprive the debtor of its ability to reject an executory contract.

In a recent adversary proceeding brought by a chapter 7 trustee to recharacterize a creditor’s claim from a debt claim to an equity interest, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of South Carolina denied a creditor’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim where the trustee had alleged that the lender assumed control over the corporation after the date of the credit agreement.

Debtors, creditors, purchasers and lenders continue to carefully monitor employee incentive programs after the 2005 changes to Bankruptcy Code brought on by BAPCA. Although many feared the changes to section 503(c) would eliminate an important tool for creating incentives for employees, courts have consistently approved reasonable and well-thought-out incentive programs.

Factual Background