Reversing the lower courts, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals has today held that, under New York law (which governs 95% of all indentures), the early repayment of indenture notes in Chapter 11 is an optional redemption requiring the payment of make-whole notwithstanding the automatic acceleration of the notes due to the Chapter 11 filing. Delaware Trust Co. v. Energy Future Intermediate Holding Company LLC (In re Energy Future Holdings Corp.), Case No. 16-1251 (5th Cir. Nov. 17, 2016).

Section 316(b) of the Trust Indenture Act, which prohibits action that would deprive individual bondholders of the right to receive principal and interest, has taken center stage of late with rulings on the scope of its applicability. But another provision of Section 316 of the TIA drives in the opposite direction, and is equally fundamental to the architecture of indenture debt as commonly issued in this country. Section 316(a)(1) prescribes the default rule that a majority of bondholders have the power to direct the remedial actions of the trustee.

The Bankruptcy Code grants a trustee (or a debtor in possession) certain “avoidance” powers to recover payments to creditors made shortly before a bankruptcy filing where the payment gave the creditor more than other, similarly situated, creditors would receive through the bankruptcy process.

In the recent decision of Unsecured Creditors Comm. of Sparrer Sausage Co., Inc. v. Jason’s Foods, 826 F.3d 388 (7th Cir. 2016), the Seventh Circuit overturned the bankruptcy court’s application of the “bucketing” method to assess an ordinary-course defense to preference liability, concluding that range of invoice payment dates chosen as the baseline was arbitrarily narrow.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Code gives debtors access to powerful rights and remedies that are not available under non-bankruptcy law. As a balance to these extraordinary powers however, a debtor may lose some or all control over its own affairs under certain circumstances. One of the rights that the debtor “puts into play” when it files bankruptcy is the attorney-client privilege (the Privilege).

The Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act (PACA) was passed by Congress in 1930 to protect agricultural produce suppliers from unscrupulous vendors who refused to pay the suppliers for their goods.

The current decline in oil prices, which continues to show no signs of a long-term reversal, is having unexpected and unwanted consequences, many of which may turn into long-lasting troubles for the oil and gas industry, especially for its investors.

What does it mean to “cure” a default in the context of a plan of reorganization? This question arises by virtue of section 1123(a)(5)(G) of the Bankruptcy Code, which requires that a plan provide adequate means for the plan’s implementation, including the “curing or waiving of any default.” On November 4, 2016, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals defined what it means to “cure” by holding that a debtor can only cure a contractual default under a plan of reorganization by complying with contractual post-default interest rate provisions.

Circuit held that when a chapter 11 debtor cures a default under its loan agreements, the debtor is required to pay default interest as required by the loan documents, rather than at the non-default rate.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently held that if a creditor wishes to participate in the distribution of a debtor’s assets under Chapter 13, it must timely file a proof of claim, and the debtor’s acknowledgment of the debt owed to the creditor does not relieve the creditor of this affirmative duty.

A copy of the opinion is available at: Link to Opinion.