Recently, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) filed a limited objection in bankruptcy court to the proposed sale of assets of ConnectEdu, Inc. (“ConnectEdu”) on the grounds that the company’s privacy policy protecting customer personal information had potentially not been complied with.
As one bankruptcy court has said, “[b]ecause deals are the heart and soul of the [c]hapter 11 process, bankruptcy courts enforce them as cut by the parties.” Unfortunately, however, deals do not always turn out as the parties expected and there is sometimes litigation to determine what exactly was bargained for in a chapter 11 plan.
The staff of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection recently sent a letter to the court handling ConnectEdu’s bankruptcy proceedings and sale of assets, which may include their customer’s personal information.
Where a document filed under seal in a bankruptcy case has nothing to do with the bankruptcy itself, is the public entitled to access the document? The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia considered this unique question in Robbins v.
Within one day of each other, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts (“District Court”) in Perkins v. Massachusetts Department of Revenue, 507 B.R. 45 (Mar. 7 2014), and the Bankruptcy Appellate Court for the First Circuit (“BAC”) in Gonzalez v. Massachusetts Department of Revenue, 506 B.R. 317 (Mar. 6, 2014), issued contrary appellate rulings as to whether tax liabilities in late-filed state tax returns are dis-chargeable under Chapter 7.
Secured creditors naturally want to be repaid. Sometimes secured creditors go as far as asking a debtor to waive its right to seek bankruptcy protection. Although such clauses are frequently held to be unenforceable, we previously have discussed exceptions for LLCs.
In In re Residential Capital, LLC, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York recently granted an oversecured creditor's request for postpetition interest at the contractual default rate, even though the debtor was insolvent. In doing so, the Bankruptcy Court rejected an argument that awarding postpetition interest at the default rate (which was 4% higher than the non-default rate) would provide an undue windfall to the oversecured creditor and harm unsecured creditors.
Why This Decision Is Important
A recent decision out of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington will be of interest to both lenders and borrowers of loans that are expected to be traded. In Meridian Sunrise Village, LLC v.
Earlier this week, the Third Circuit affirmed a federal bankruptcy court’s dismissal of a mesothelioma claim against a bankrupt oil company that arose as an adversary proceeding fifteen years after the bankruptcy plan was confirmed and discharged all outstanding claims. The Circuit held that because the parties conceded the claim arose at the time of the victim’s asbestos exposure, which pre-dated the defendant’s bankruptcy, a