The recentfiling by the City of Detroit for bankruptcy—the largest such municipal filing in history—has brought with it an unexpected art law twist.  Namely: to what extent can, or should the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts be used to satisfy the city’s creditors.  As one might expect, the differences between what the city can do, what it should do

As with our prior posts on oil and gas leases in bankruptcy (located here and here), this post presents another thorny issue – namely, “Is an oil and gas lease a leas

On July 24, 2013, Judge Steven W. Rhodes of the Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Michigan approved the City of Detroit’s motion to extend the automatic stay to various non-debtor parties, including certain state officials. The Court’s ruling effectively stays all pending litigation against the City, allows the City to continue to move forward with its chapter 9 case, and paves the way for a dispute over the City’s eligibility to file for chapter 9.

The Chapter 9 Filing and the State Court Litigation

In a recent unanimous decision, the United States Supreme Court made it more difficult to avoid a bankruptcy debtor discharging a debt tied to "defalcation while acting in a fiduciary capacity." [1] In Bullock, the Court stated that a defalcation, or misappropriation of funds, requires a

Over the next few years, a significant number of distressed bank-holding companies will face the end of interestdeferral periods and the prospect of payment defaults on certain debt instruments and trust-preferred securities. The looming obligations to repay deferred interest may escalate the need for financial restructuring at these holding companies and may create attractive opportunities for investors to recapitalize or acquire their subsidiary banks, including in a bankruptcy scenario.

Secured creditors need to be aware of recent bankruptcy rulings that affect their rights and interests. These rulings have tested the boundaries of key concepts affecting the ability to "cramdown" and involuntarily restructure a secured creditor’s rights and the valuation of collateral. Secured creditors must therefore be mindful of these developments and risks in guiding their negotiating and litigation strategy against a cramdown threat.

Under the Bankruptcy Code, a bankruptcy trustee or chapter 11 debtor in possession (“DIP”) is required to satisfy postpetition obligations under any unexpired lease of commercial property pending a decision to assume or reject the lease. Specifically, section 365(d)(3) requires the trustee, with limited exceptions, to “timely perform all the obligations of the debtor . . . arising from and after the order for relief” under any unexpired lease of nonresidential real property with respect to which the debtor is the lessee.

Several insurers in liquidation proceedings have upcoming claims bar dates:

Fall-out from the subprime and Alt-A mortgage crisis continued recently with court approval of a multi-million dollar settlement of a lawsuit filed against former top officers of what had been one of the country’s leading subprime lenders before its bankruptcy in January 2008.

The ability of a bankruptcy court to reorder the priority of claims or interests by means of equitable subordination or recharacterization of debt as equity is generally recognized. Even so, the Bankruptcy Code itself expressly authorizes only the former of these two remedies. Although common law uniformly acknowledges the power of a court to recast a claim asserted by a creditor as an equity interest in an appropriate case, the Bankruptcy Code is silent upon the availability of the remedy in a bankruptcy case.