After months of speculation, it is now official : PG&E (both the parent, PG&E Corporation, and its subsidiary, Pacific Gas & Electric Company), having faced extraordinary challenges relating to catastrophic wildfires in 2017 and 2018, has announced that a voluntary bankruptcy filing “is appropriate, necessary and in the best interests of all stakeholders, including wildfire claimants, PG&E’s other creditors and shareholders, and is ultimately the only viable option to restore PG&E’s financial stability to fund ongoing operations and provide safe service to customers.” As
Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corp., No. 15-649 (2017)
In In re Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC (“Madoff”),1 the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reaffirmed its broad and literal interpretation of section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code, which provides a safe harbor for transfers made in connection with a securities contract that might otherwise be attacked as preferences or fraudulent transfers.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a secured creditor cannot be denied its right to “credit bid”—i.e., to offset the amount of its debt against the purchase price of assets, rather than bidding in cash—in sales of collateral undertaken in connection with plans of reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. In so ruling, the Court resolved a widely publicized split of authority among the Circuit Courts of Appeal, and rejected the Third Circuit’s ruling in the Philadelphia Newspapers case.1
The US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FRB) have jointly approved a proposed rule requiring certain companies to periodically submit Resolution Plans (also referred to as “living wills”) and Credit Exposure Reports (the “Proposed Rule”) to the FRB and FDIC.1
In a decision that will be of great interest to the creditor community, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held, on November 5, 2009, that the Bankruptcy Code does not bar an unsecured claim for post-petition attorneys’ fees that was authorized under a valid prepetition contract. The case, Ogle v. Fidelity & Deposit Company of Maryland,1 extends and clarifies the US Supreme Court’s March 2007 decision in the Travelers case,2 which opened the door for such a ruling.
In a recent decision, Judge David Novak of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia vacated the Chapter 11 plan confirmation order entered by the bankruptcy court in the Mahwah Bergen Retail Group (formerly known as Ascena Retail Group) case, holding that the plan’s non-consensual third-party releases were unenforceable.1 The ruling arrived shortly after an
With more than $1.7 trillion in student loan debt outstanding in the United States, student loan borrowers sometimes try to turn to the bankruptcy courts for relief, often without success due to the fact that most student loans are presumed to be nondischargeable.[1] In its July 15, 2021 decision in In re Homaidan,
The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 (the CAA), which President Trump signed into law on December 27, 2020, amends several provisions of the Bankruptcy Code. While a number of the amendments are applicable only to small businesses (e.g., businesses eligible to file under the new small-business subchapter of the Bankruptcy Code and/or businesses eligible to receive PPP loans), several others have more general application, as discussed below.
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Amendments of More General Application
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has raised pressing questions about how a force majeure provision in a lease will affect a tenant's obligation to pay rent.