On March 21, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California affirmed a bankruptcy court’s dismissal of the San Benito Healthcare District’s chapter 9 bankruptcy petition on the grounds that the...more
Introduction -
On March 31, 2025, Judge Christopher Lopez of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas denied confirmation of the prepackaged Chapter 11 plan of Johnson & Johnson (“J&J”) affiliate Red...more
On March 26, 2025, the Supreme Court held in an 8‑to‑1 decision authored by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson that Section 106(a) of the Bankruptcy Code waives the federal government’s sovereign immunity with respect to...more
On March 18, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held in In re Highland Capital Mgmt., L.P., that a plan’s gatekeeping and injunction provisions could not extend to claims against most non-debtors...more
3/31/2025
/ Appeals ,
Bankruptcy Code ,
Bankruptcy Court ,
Bankruptcy Plans ,
Chapter 11 ,
Debt Restructuring ,
Debtors ,
Harrington v Purdue Pharma L P ,
Injunctions ,
Liability ,
Non-Debtors ,
Third-Party Release Agrements
Introduction & Key Takeaways - The year 2024 ended with some major legal fireworks, as two important courts issued contrasting New Year’s Eve decisions on the validity of “uptier” liability management transactions that have...more
Until recently, two of the most important cases interpreting the Bankruptcy Code’s “safe harbor” provisions appeared to be in potential tension. First, in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 Merit Management decision, the Supreme...more
10/1/2024
/ Bankruptcy Code ,
Chapter 11 ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Financial Transactions ,
Liquidation ,
Parent Corporation ,
Recapitalization ,
Safe Harbors ,
Securities ,
Trustees
On September 10, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held in In re The Hertz Corporation that unsecured creditors of a solvent debtor are entitled to receive the contractual rate of interest, rather than...more
On November 3, 2023, the Court in the Chapter 9 bankruptcy case of the City of Chester, Pennsylvania issued its ruling in an adversary proceeding challenging the perfection of the liens securing certain revenue bonds issued...more
In a ruling issued just yesterday, MOAC Mall Holdings LLC v. Transform Holdco LLC et al., 598 U.S. ----, 2023 WL 2992693 (2023) (“MOAC”), the United States Supreme Court (the “Supreme Court”) held that Bankruptcy Code section...more
4/21/2023
/ 363 Sales ,
Bankruptcy Code ,
Bankruptcy Court ,
Chapter 11 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Debtors ,
Jurisdiction ,
MOAC Mall Holdings LLC v Transform Holdco LLC ,
Mootness ,
Sale of Assets ,
SCOTUS ,
Sears ,
Section 363
On March 14, 2023, Judge Ashely M. Chan of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (the “Court”) ruled that the City of Chester, Pennsylvania (the “City” or “Chester”) was eligible for municipal...more
Executive Summary:
On January 30, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (the “Court”) issued an opinion in In re LTL Management, LLC, No. 22-2003, 2023 WL 1098189, at *1 (3d Cir. Jan. 30, 2023) (“LTL...more
2/10/2023
/ Bankruptcy Court ,
Chapter 11 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Corporate Liability ,
Debt ,
Financial Distress ,
Good Faith ,
Johnson & Johnson ,
Mass Tort Litigation ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Popular
On March 15, 2022, the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico announced that the Plan of Adjustment for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico became effective, more than four years after Puerto Rico commenced...more
On May 20, 2021, the Illinois Supreme Court finally put to rest a long-simmering challenge to the validity of around $14 billion of Illinois general obligation bonds. The Supreme Court unanimously affirmed, albeit on...more
On August 11, 2020, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed lower court decisions rejecting Lehman Brothers Special Financing Inc.’s (“LBSF”) attempt to recover nearly $1 billion in payments to...more
On August 6, 2020, an Illinois appellate court ruled that a petition by political activist John Tillman seeking leave to invalidate approximately $16 billion of Illinois’s general obligation bonds (“GO Bonds”) should be...more
On August 9, 2019, in a unanimous decision (written by a former bankruptcy judge), the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the confirmation of the Peabody Energy Chapter 11 plan (“Plan”) with a prominent backstopped...more
9/11/2019
/ Adversary Proceedings ,
Appeals ,
Backstop Agreements ,
Bankruptcy Code ,
Bankruptcy Court ,
Chapter 11 ,
Coal Industry ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Debt Restructuring ,
Debtors ,
Energy Sector ,
Equitable Mootness ,
Good Faith ,
Judgment on the Merits ,
Offerings ,
Peabody Energy ,
Preferred Shares ,
Private Placements ,
Pro Rata Allocation Rule ,
Reorganizations ,
Sales of Securities ,
Secured Debt ,
Securities Regulation ,
Unsecured Debt
On August 29, 2019, an Illinois court denied a petition by a political activist and a hedge fund seeking leave to file a lawsuit claiming that approximately $16 billion of Illinois’s general obligation bonds (“GO Bonds”) were...more
9/5/2019
/ CDS ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Debt ,
Financial Obligations ,
Fixed Operating Expenses ,
Municipal Bonds ,
Municipal Securities Issuers ,
Municipalities ,
Retroactive Application ,
State and Local Government ,
State Budgets ,
State Constitutions
In Mission Product Holdings, the Supreme Court Endorses “Rejection-as-Breach” Rule and Interprets Broadly the Contract Rights that Survive Rejection -
On May 20, 2019, the United States Supreme Court resolved one of the...more
6/3/2019
/ Bankruptcy Code ,
Breach of Contract ,
Certiorari ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Debtors ,
IP License ,
License Termination ,
Licensees ,
Manufacturers ,
Mission Product Holdings Inc v Tempnology LLC ,
SCOTUS ,
Section 365 ,
Trademark Licenses
On July 24, 2015, Judge Rita M. Novak of the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois struck down recently enacted legislation designed to shore up two of the City of Chicago’s severely underfunded pension plans by, among other...more
On May 4, 2015, a unanimous United States Supreme Court in Bullard v. Blue Hills, 135 S. Ct. 1686 (2015), resolved a long-standing circuit court split by holding that a bankruptcy court’s order denying confirmation of a...more
On May 8, 2015, the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois struck down recently enacted state public pension reform legislation on the grounds that the legislation violated the “pension protection clause” of the Illinois...more
Shortly after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit refused to enforce Vitro SAB’s Mexican plan of reorganization in the United States (covered here), Judge Harlin D. Hale of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the...more
Originally published in the New York Law Journal on January 3, 2012.
On Nov. 28, 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in In re Vitro S.A.B. de C.V. issued a groundbreaking decision under Chapter 15 of...more
Originally published in the New York Law Journal on January 3, 2012.
On Nov. 28, 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in In re Vitro S.A.B. de C.V. issued a groundbreaking decision under Chapter 15 of...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit recently ruled that a perpetual, royalty-free, and exclusive trademark licensing agreement qualified as an executory contract subject to assumption or rejection under...more