New Consumer Bankruptcy Reform Act Implications and the 2023 Congressional Outlook - The Consumer Finance Podcast
Introduction - On September 10, 2024, the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit decided in In re Hertz that although make-whole fees are unmatured interest typically disallowed by section 502(b) of the Bankruptcy Code, a...more
The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia held recently that unsecured creditors who fail to monitor bankruptcy proceedings for treatment of their claim do not show “excusable neglect” and must face the...more
Recently, two significant distressed companies with thousands of commercial leases, Rite Aid Corp. and WeWork Inc., each filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases, seeking in part to rationalize their geographic footprints through...more
In light of the banking failures of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and First Republic (as well as Credit Suisse), this summer, the Federal Reserve and the FDIC proposed guidance and rules for larger banks to (i) develop...more
Uncertain Future- The Congressional Budget Office (“CBO”) recently released some data for the federal government’s 2023 fiscal year. According to the CBO, the federal budget deficit for the year was $1.7 trillion, or...more
Troutman Pepper's Creditor’s Rights Toolkit is a series that provides practical insights to help creditors confront the challenges of commercial bankruptcy. A claims agent is a third party retained by the debtor to take on...more
As of March 2023, commercial chapter 11 filings were up 79% compared to the same period of 2022, which includes a number of large retailers. The first quarter of 2023 saw the highest number of corporate bankruptcy filings in...more
Two recent decisions from circuit courts of appeal – the Fifth and Ninth – have addressed a question that does not arise often: in a solvent-debtor chapter 11 case, is the debtor required to pay post-petition interest...more
With the Federal Reserve raising interest rates, businesses struggling with floating rate increases and those needing to refinance may find bankruptcy reorganization an appealing alternative to high interest refinancing....more
Lowenstein Sandler’s previous article on crypto bankruptcies discussed some bankruptcy basics and the role of a creditors’ committee in protecting the rights of customers. This article will delve deeper into the...more
In a recent decision in Dillworth v. Mahecha Diaz, Adv. No. 20-1079-SMG, 2022 WL 1123004 (Bankr. S.D. Fla. April 15, 2022), the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida found that a post-confirmation creditors’...more
Imagine this: you sell a product to a company on credit at 8% interest until you are paid, and the company files for bankruptcy before repayment. Or maybe you are a hard money lender that made an unsecured loan at 18% to a...more
In every insolvency or bankruptcy proceeding, there are winners and losers. Senior secured creditors are often paid in full while general unsecured creditors receive pennies on the dollar. Typically, who gets paid and who...more
On March 2, 2021, stationery and gift retailer Paper Source filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy, stating in court filings that effects of the COVID-19 pandemic damaged its finances and operations. Paper Source stated that in...more
Somewhere in our rough memories of high school science, we should recall the general principle that a gas will always expand to fill a given void. Although the Bankruptcy Code diverges markedly from scientific principles,...more
Cuker Interactive, LLC filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition on December 13, 2018, in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of California. Because it was solvent at confirmation, the debtor proposed...more
Financially distressed debtors frequently use Chapter 11 to sell their businesses and assets in one or more transactions, primarily in order to pay down secured debt obligations owed to one or more lenders. In the best case,...more
On Oct. 26, in a highly anticipated decision, the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, In re Ultra Petroleum Corp. Corp., et al., Case No. 16-32202 (Bankr. S.D. Tex. 2020), held that certain noteholders were...more
Originally enacted in 1978, and largely unmodified since, Section 1104(c)(2) of the Bankruptcy Code mandates the appointment of an examiner when a debtor has over $5 million of unsecured debt. Today, that threshold is...more
Eight years after the Delaware bankruptcy court confirmed the chapter 11 plan of Tribune Company and its affiliates, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (the Court) affirmed the bankruptcy court’s...more
On August 26, 2020, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that the Bankruptcy Code does not require subordination agreements to be strictly enforced in order for a court to confirm a cramdown plan, so long as the...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
The COVID-19 pandemic has heavily disrupted our lives, communities, and businesses. Even with new approaches, not all businesses can overcome the substantial challenges brought by the pandemic. Lending programs like the...more
Confirmation of a Chapter 11 plan generally requires the consent of each impaired class of creditors. A debtor can “cramdown” a plan over creditor dissent, however, as long as at least one class of impaired claims accepts the...more
A series of decisions over the past year — on issues such as make-whole premiums, intercreditor agreements, backstops for rights offerings and nonconsensual third-party releases — will likely have a significant impact in 2020...more