This article has been contributed to the blog by Joshua Hurwitz, an Associate of the Insolvency & Restructuring group at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt and Jaime Auron, an Articling Student at Osle

Today’s blog article, which looks at the treatment of specific oil and gas property interests in the bankruptcy context, is the second in the Weil Bankruptcy Blog series, “Drilling Down,” where we review issues at the intersection of the oil and gas industry and bankruptcy law.

This article has been contributed to the blog by Andrea Lockhart, an Associate in the Insolvency and Restructuring Group of Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, and Mary Angela Rowe, an Articling Stu

“I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.” – HAL 9000, 2001: A Space Odyssey

As a general rule, bankruptcy courts do not enforce provisions in organizational documents, loan agreements, or other prepetition contracts that purport to alter or waive the protections of the Bankruptcy Code. As with most rules, however, there are exceptions.

Do Your Duty As You See It: Recent Decisions on Board Duties and Corporate Governance

Proofs of claim filed against a debtor can be as varied as the claimants themselves. Everything from hand-written notes to hundreds of pages of sophisticated corporate documents has been submitted in support of claims. Matters become even more complicated when the claimant is a foreigner relying on foreign law and foreign language documents. In 

For a Throwback Thursday, we often go way back, to cases establishing first principles. This time, however, we travel not so far back, but still to a bygone era, the early 80’s. It was a time when the Bankruptcy Code was still new, and judges could interpret it without the weight of much practice and precedent. Often, these cases present the starting point for familiar interpretations that continued to develop in later years, but other times it’s surprising to see a new interpretive opening that, years later, is not thoroughly explored.

Recently, the Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana stayed its own judgment pending an appeal to resolve doubt over the bankruptcy court’s authority to enter judgment on counterclaims related to a management agreement among Highsteppin’ Productions, L.L.C.

In Part II of this three-part entry, we mentioned that the District Court for