One person’s successful confirmation of a plan of reorganization is another person’s bad faith abuse of the rules. Last month in In re The Village at Lakeridge, LLC, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals waded into just such an area: the intersection of claims buying, insider status, and plan voting. Specifically, it addressed whether a non-insider creditor who purchases a claim from an insider is considered an insider for voting purposes.
The use of third-party releases in Chapter 11 has become more permissible in recent years, and, because it is such a potent tool, the exact contours and limits of these releases have been hotly debated. We first blogged about third-party releases last year in our series on the confirmation-related recommendations in the ABI Commission Report.
Justice Antonin Scalia died on Saturday. He was 79. Politics aside, he was a legal giant on the world’s most powerful court. However, we’ll leave the tributes to those who knew Justice Scalia and those who make their careers studying the Supreme Court.
On Monday in the Samson Resources Corporation Chapter 11 bankruptcy case, Delaware’s Judge Sontchi adopted Judge Walrath’s recentBaker Botts opinion in Delaware’s Boomerang Tube Chapter 11 case regarding fee-defense costs after Baker Botts.
(I’m told that these are “Boomerang Tubes”) Back in September, we blogged about two pending Delaware bankruptcy cases regarding fee-defense costs after Baker Botts, L.L.P. v. ASARCO: In re Boomerang Tube, LLC, et al. and In re Northshore Mainland Services, Inc., et al. (a/k/a the...
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(If as many people who showed up to the 9th Circuit for Prop 8 showed up for the absolute priority rule, then the absolute priority rule might...
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In drafting a bankruptcy plan, causes of action often appear to be an overlooked step-child. Type A bankruptcy lawyers like us spend hours carefully drafting or dissecting the language on assets, liabilities, potential preferences, plan effective dates, and the like, while spending very little time fleshing out and providing for causes of action held by the estate.
(As is my favorite New Year’s tradition, we’re in DC, but will watch it on PBS!)
It’s that obligatory time of the year for “Year in Review” posts and the like. We’re also closing Plan Proponent’s inaugural year. Therefore, from my makeshift office at my in-laws’ home in Potomac, Maryland, here’s our “Best of 2015” post. Happy New Year from Stone & Baxter!
Overview
In today’s post, we’ll shift away from the big Delaware cases and focus on a critical “small business debtor” Chapter 11 provision. Over the past 6 years, our firm hasn’t filed many small business cases, mostly because many of our debtors were real estate debtors and, thus, definitionally excluded from the small business category. However, 80% of Chapter 11 cases fall into the small business category.