Contact: John Hartgen
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ABI POLL FINDS THAT COURT-ORDERED INFORMATION-SHARING PROTOCOLS ARE A SOLUTION TO BAPCPA’S COMMITTEE DISCLOSURE REQUIREMENTS

May 30, 2006, Alexandria, Va. —Seventy-two percent of respondents to the recent American Bankruptcy Institute online poll agreed that court-ordered information-sharing protocols, like those established in the Refco and Calpine cases, are a solution to concerns over the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005’s (BAPCPA) committee disclosure requirements. Nearly half (44 percent) said that they “agree somewhat” that court-ordered information-sharing would satisfy concerns over BAPCPA’s committee disclosure requirements, with 28 percent respondents weighing in that they “agree strongly.”

Only 16 percent of respondents disagreed that court-ordered information-sharing requirement protocols are the solution to concerns over the new law’s committee disclosure requirements, as 8 percent “disagreed strongly” and 8 percent “somewhat disagreed.” Thirteen percent of the respondents did not know or had no opinion on the issue.

ABI membership and members of the public were welcome to submit their response to the statement: “Court-ordered information-sharing protocols like the one established in Refco and Calpine are the solution to concerns over BAPCPA’s committee disclosure requirements.”  The poll was open for voting from May 18 – May 24.

The poll question was based on recent court cases, including Refco, Calpine, Oneida and Silicon Graphics, Inc., in which debtors have sought the court’s permission to limit the sharing of confidential information to only those participants of a creditors’ committee bound by a confidentiality agreement.

The ABI Quick Poll is posted on ABI’s home page, www.abiworld.org. ABI members and the public are invited to respond to a question on a timely bankruptcy or insolvency issue.

Visit http://www.abiworld.net/quickpoll/ to access the results of previous ABI’s Quick Poll.

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ABI is the largest multi-disciplinary, nonpartisan organization dedicated to research and education on matters related to insolvency. ABI was founded in 1982 to provide Congress and the public with unbiased analysis of bankruptcy issues. The ABI membership includes more than 11,500 attorneys, accountants, bankers, judges, professors, lenders, turnaround specialists and other bankruptcy professionals providing a forum for the exchange of ideas and information. For additional information on ABI, visit www.abiworld.org. For additional conference information, visit http://www.abiworld.org/conferences.html.