May chapter 13 plans prioritize payments to debtors’ attorneys over secured creditors? Bankruptcy courts are divided, and two recent decisions have widened the gap.
Committees Committee
Committees
Circuits are split on the issue of whether bankruptcy courts can confirm plans containing non-consensual third-party releases. Historically, the split involved the application of Bankruptcy Code § 105 or 524. Recently, however, a few secured creditors have relied on Stern v.
The opinion issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in DZ Bank Ag Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftbank, Frankfurt Am Main v. Meyer[1] is noteworthy to secured creditors in the context of the extent of the judgment to which they may be entitled as a consequence of the commission of actual fraud.
[1]A new business entity formed today more likely than not will be formed as a limited liability company (LLC).
Following a chapter 11 case, lenders face significant risks associated with debtor-in-possession (DIP) loans or cash-collateral orders that provide for automatically perfected liens encumbering a debtor’s assets.
Suppliers of goods to ocean-going vessels can face considerable counterparty risk, as the vessels that they supply may never return to the same port.
On Jan. 15, 2016, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Alabama decided In re Moorer, 15-30422-WRS, 2016 WL 199061 (Bankr. M.D. Ala. Jan. 15, 2016), wherein the court allowed the debtor to bifurcate a loan and treat the value of the property as the secured claim,
This year has been an exciting one for the Secured Credit Committee (SCC). For those of you interested in learning more about SCC activities, and hopefully becoming more involved, this message summarizes some of the highlights of the SCC in 2015, the SCC's goals for 2016, and areas in which you might want to become involved.
Can a debtor use its lack of following corporate and statutory formalities as a defense to a request for adequate protection? The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Maine ruled on this question as well as some others in In re Parkview Adventist Medical Center.
On June 1, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Bank of America N.A., v. Caulkett,[1] unanimously holding that debtors could not strip off a second lien in a chapter 7 proceeding. In Caulkett, the debtors were attempting to void a junior lien where the debt owed by the senior lien exceeded the value of the collateral.