The complexities of cancellation of debt income (CODI), including bankruptcy and insolvency implications, are important to understand.
When debt is cancelled or discharged, the borrowed funds become taxable income, or...more
A recent bankruptcy court decision determined that a debtor cannot reject an unexercised option for the purchase of its real estate, raising a potentially significant bar to any debtor extricating itself from an under-market...more
New York bankruptcy court breaks with precedent and endorses time approach for calculating lease termination damages over rent amount approach, resulting in smaller claims for landlords.
Time approach limits, and often...more
Hospitality debtors with substantial equity but prolonged depressed revenues due to COVID-19 may find negative amortization, a tool used sparingly pre-pandemic, helpful in the restructuring of mortgage debt under a chapter 11...more
2/25/2021
/ Amortization ,
Bankruptcy Court ,
Chapter 11 ,
Commercial Real Estate Market ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Debt Restructuring ,
Debtors ,
Hospitality Industry ,
Mortgages ,
Recovery Plans ,
Remote Working
While the recent Bankruptcy Code amendments allow small business debtors to extend their deferral of lease obligations beyond the first 60 days of the bankruptcy case, the amendments raise and leave unanswered important...more
1/27/2021
/ Bankruptcy Code ,
Bifurcation ,
CARES Act ,
Chapter 11 ,
Commercial Leases ,
Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA) ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Debtors ,
New Amendments ,
Small Business ,
Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019 (SBRA)
A recent Chuck E. Cheese decision rejects the debtor’s/tenant’s request to avoid paying rent based upon state law equity arguments.
CEC’s leases expressly do not permit rent relief even if force majeure is triggered....more
A recent Chuck E. Cheese decision denies the debtor’s/tenant’s request to defer paying rent after the 60-day “rent holiday.”
The Bankruptcy Court applied the “plain language” rule to hold that section 365(d)(3)’s rent...more
“Can an unsecured creditor be better off when the debtor defaults rather than paying off the debt? Yes: Law can be stranger than fiction in the Preference Zone.”—Ninth Circuit
Untimely payment by tenants and other obligors...more
8/20/2020
/ Appeals ,
Bankruptcy Appellate Panel (BAP) ,
Bankruptcy Code ,
Bankruptcy Court ,
Chapter 11 ,
Chapter 7 ,
Commercial Tenants ,
Debtors ,
Default ,
Landlords ,
Late Payments ,
Letter of Credit ,
Preferential Transfers ,
Reversal ,
Security Deposits ,
Unsecured Debt
In a recent Delaware ruling, Judge Mary F. Walrath declines to follow the Fifth Circuit and holds that “a minority shareholder has [no] more right to block a bankruptcy… than a creditor does.”
Real estate and other lenders...more
Lenders should plan for real estate owner bankruptcies despite having a non-recourse carveout guaranty triggered by the owner’s bankruptcy filing.
Real estate bankruptcies may occur despite personal guaranties because...more
Reorganization plans providing for non-debtor releases (i.e., releasing non-debtors from claims by creditors of the debtor) have been regularly challenged in recent years, frequently by the United States Trustee and other...more