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
Be careful when you sell intellectual property (“IP”) in return for future royalty payments. You may think your contract is airtight, guaranteeing you a future annuity on the sales of product relating to your IP, but that...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
Under § 506(a)(1) of the Bankruptcy Code, a secured creditor’s claim is secured only to the extent of the collateral’s value. Any amount over that value is bifurcated into a separate unsecured claim. Critically, if a...more
Earlier this year, a district court for the Middle District of Florida upheld a jury award of $225,000 in punitive damages in a debt collection case finding the defendant’s conduct “reprehensible” based on the physical harm...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
On July 25, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed a bankruptcy court’s approval of a break-up fee and expense reimbursement owed to a debtor’s prior lender, after the lender was not the winning bidder...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
On June 30, the Supreme Court ruled that the Biden administration did not have authority to forgive student loans under the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 (HEROES Act). Despite this defeat,...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
Bankruptcy Basics for New and Non-Bankruptcy Attorneys - This entry is part of Nelson Mullins’s ongoing “Bankruptcy Basics” blog series that is intended to address foundational aspects of bankruptcy for new and...more
Continuing our series on bankruptcy schedules, Schedule F is used to list all of your general unsecured debts. General unsecured debts are those that are not secured by collateral and are not entitled to priority payment...more
In 2022, there were several high-profile crypto bankruptcy filings. A big question in these cases is whether there will be any money to satisfy unsecured creditor claims. If there are funds to distribute, then the...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
Congress has made some small but important changes to the Bankruptcy Code through its enactment of the Bankruptcy Threshold Adjustment and Technical Corrections Act (the "Act") on June 21, 2022. The most important of these...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
Bankruptcy is primarily about “claims.” The debtor seeks to discharge personal liability on claims, while creditors seek payment on their claims. In basic terms, a bankruptcy “claim” is a right to payment. The claim does not...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