Since it was issued three years ago by the Ninth Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel, the Clear Channel decision (Clear Channel Outdoor, Inc. v. Knupfer (In re PW, LLC), 391 B.R. 25 (9th Cir. B.A.P. 2008)) has been widely criticized as “an aberration in well-settled bankruptcy jurisprudence.” Before Clear Channel, conventional wisdom (and what most people perceived to be the law) supported the notion that a bankruptcy sale order that contained a good faith finding under Section 363(m) could not be disturbed on appeal.
A consortium uniting Apple, Inc. and Microsoft with other top players in the software, electronics and wireless handset industries outplayed Google in a bankruptcy court auction for Nortel’s patent portfolio, posting a winning offer of $4.5 billion for the trove of 6,000 patents that cover fourth-generation wireless, data networking, Internet, and semiconductor technologies.
The Bottom Line:
On June 21, 2011, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in In re Evans Industries, Inc., that a purchaser of assets from a bankrupt company cannot make a claim against a holdback escrow account for expenses incurred while cleaning up hazardous waste that the bankrupt company left behind. Pursuant to an asset purchase agreement, Grief Industrial Packaging and Services purchased five facilities from Evans Industries, Incorporated.
The Bottom Line:
Back in the mists of time, a seller that had a valid reclamation claim but was denied the return of its goods was entitled to an administrative expense claim (a claim with a higher priority than a general unsecured claim and thus a better chance of getting paid) or a lien on the debtor’s assets. The 2005 amendment to § 546(c) of the Bankruptcy Code changed all that by stripping away those alternative remedies.
The Bottom Line:
A recent decision by the U.S. District Court for the
Southern District of New York concluded that a landlord
who obtains a judgment of possession and warrant of
eviction prepetition, yet is stayed from executing on the
warrant due to the debtor’s bankruptcy filing, may not be
entitled to post-petition rent as an administrative expense.
In In re Association of Graphic Communications, Inc., No. 07-
10278 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. July 13, 2010), the court decided
that, under New York law, the prepetition warrant of
Recently secured parties, including some indenture trustees, have found the priority, scope, validity and enforceability of seemingly properly perfected security interests in Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) licenses, authorizations and permits, and any proceeds or value derived therefrom, challenged by creditors in bankruptcy proceedings.
DBSD Case Upholds Designation of Votes Cast By a Claims Purchaser