A New York bankruptcy court recently allowed a pro se debtor to discharge over $200,000 in student loan debt, vehemently rejecting as “punitive” more recent legal authority concerning how student loan debts may be discharged in bankruptcy.

In 2007, Philadelphia Entertainment and Development Partners, LP dba Foxwoods Casino Philadelphia (“Plaintiff”) secured a gaming license from Pennsylvania for $50,000,000 with the understanding that it open its casino business within one year. Plaintiff failed to do so and, despite a number of extensions, Pennsylvania cancelled and revoked the gaming license in December 2010. Without a gaming license, Plaintiff found itself in chapter 11 by spring of 2014.

In re Markus, 607 B.R. 379 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 2019) [click for opinion]  

The Bottom Line

A recent bankruptcy court decision out of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California, In re Verity Health Sys. of Cal., Inc., Case No. 2:18-bk-20151 (ER) (Bankr. C.D. Cal. Nov. 27, 2019), is a good reminder of how difficult it is for a purchaser under an asset purchase agreement to get out of the deal by invoking a Material Adverse Effect clause (also known as a Material Adverse Change clause) (an “MAE”).

A Texas bankruptcy court recently ruled that dedication clauses in gas-gathering agreements run with the land and cannot be rejected by a debtor. That decision, In re Alta Mesa Resources, Inc., affirms an industrywide practice that faced an uncertain future following the ruling in In re Sabine Oil & Gas Corp. from the Southern District of New York, which was upheld by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2018.

On December 20, 2019, the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas in Alta Mesa Holdings, LP v.

On December 20, 2019, the honorable Marvin Isgur, judge of the Southern District of Texas Bankruptcy Court, issued an opinion holding that Alta Mesa Holdings (“Alta Mesa”), an upstream oil and gas producer with operations based in the STACK formation, could not, under Oklahoma law, reject certain gathering agreements in its bankruptcy case.1 The holding in Alta Mesa follows a similar outcome issued less than three months earlier in In re Badlands Energy, Inc.,2 a case decided by a Colorado bankruptcy court applying Utah law.

In a highly anticipated decision issued last Thursday (on December 19, 2019), the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held in In re Millennium Lab Holdings II, LLC that a bankruptcy court may constitutionally confirm a chapter 11 plan of reorganization that contains nonconsensual third-party releases. The court considered whether, pursuant to the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Stern v. Marshall, 564 U.S. 462 (2011), Article III of the United States Constitution prohibits a bankruptcy court from granting such releases.

In In re FirstEnergy Solutions Corp., 2019 WL 6767004 (6th Cir. Ct. App.), the United States Court of Appeals affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded to the bankruptcy court for further consideration, the determination that the bankruptcy court held exclusive and unlimited jurisdiction and therefore could enjoin FERC from taking action regarding energy contracts because under the BJR they were financially burdensome on FES and as such could be rejected.

Facts