Back in July, the United States bankruptcy court for the Eastern District of California held that under its local rules, an attorney submitting electronically signed documents for filing with the court must maintain an originally signed document in paper form bearing a “wet” signature.

The Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure (“Bankruptcy Rules”) require each corporate party in an adversary proceeding (i.e., a bankruptcy court suit) to file a statement identifying the holders of “10% or more” of the party’s equity interests. Fed. R. Bankr. P. 7007.1(a). Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn, relying on another local Bankruptcy Rule (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. R.

An undersecured mortgagee’s “release of [its entire underlying claim] was value obtained ‘in exchange for’ the [pre-bankruptcy] sale of the [debtor’s] property,” held the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit on Dec. 6, 2016. In re Expert South Tulsa LLC, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 21704, at *11 (10th Cir. Dec. 6, 2016). The Tenth Circuit flatly rejected the debtor’s attempt “to set aside as a fraudulent transfer its own sale of real estate that was encumbered by a mortgage far exceeding the sale price.” Id. at *1.

Many of us in the restructuring industry worked on Chapter 9 matters in the late 80’s and early to mid-90’s. Some were involved in large, exotic matters like Orange County, California. Most of us earned our stripes in repairing the state of affairs for numerous, smaller municipal improvement districts, levy improvement districts, road districts, and the like, both in and out of court. Recently, the City of Detroit caught a lot of attention in what appears to have been a successful restructuring.

Key Tool for Non-Bankrupt Licensees 

 SEIU-Texas (formerly known as SEIU Local 5) may have pushed its anti-employer corporate campaign too far in 2007, when it alleged publicly that a non-union Texas janitorial contractor systematically failed to pay its employees for all hours worked and instructed janitors to work off the clock. The employer, Professional Janitorial Servicing of Houston, Inc., sued the union in state court for defamation, and in September 2016 won a jury verdict of $5.3 million in lost profits and $2.5 million in pre-judgment interest.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit recently rejected a bankruptcy trustee’s effort to avoid a mortgage on the basis that the acknowledgment signed by the borrowers’ attorney-in-fact was defective under Massachusetts law, holding that the acknowledgment was not materially defective because as a matter of agency law the attorney-in-fact’s signature was the borrowers’ “free act and deed.”

From time to time, you may be seeing references to the Uniform Voidable Transactions Act (UVTA). Indeed, since 2014, the law has already been enacted in nine states and introduced in another seven states. If you are wondering what this new law is all about, you should know that it is really a very old law with a new name. The crux of the law is to prevent debtors from escaping their creditors by making transfers of assets to avoid paying their debts. This law has been a key part of debtor-creditor law in the United States and England dating back to the time of the reign of Elizabeth I.

The receipt of make-whole premiums, including during a bankruptcy after acceleration of the notes, is of paramount importance to noteholders. Decisions in some recent cases in New York and Delaware bankruptcy and federal district courts have held that note purchase agreements or indentures must include an express agreement that the make-whole premium (or similar prepayment premium) is payable upon acceleration (rather than prepayment) after the filing of a bankruptcy proceeding. In the recent Momentive decision (In re MPM Silicones, LLC), for example, the U.S.

The Barton doctrine, which has been imposed in “an unbroken line of cases … as a matter of federal common law,” In re Linton, 136 F.3d 544, 545 (7th Cir. 1998) (Posner, J.), requires that plaintiffs “obtain authorization from the bankruptcy court before initiating an action in another forum against certain officers appointed by the bankruptcy court for actions the officers have taken in their official capacities.” In re Yellowstone Mountain Club, LLC, No. 14-35363, ___ F.3d ___, 2016 WL 6936595, at *2 (9th Cir. Nov.