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
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
Parties structuring certain financial transactions to comply with the Bankruptcy Code safe harbor provisions, including protections from the avoidance powers in Section 548 of the Bankruptcy Code, must be cognizant of recent...more
Three years have passed since the COVID-19 pandemic reached the United States and its effects are still being felt today. Even though lockdown measures have largely disappeared and many workers have returned to the office,...more
8/17/2023
/ Bankruptcy Code ,
Bankruptcy Court ,
Chapter 11 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Creditors ,
Debtors ,
Executory Contracts ,
Financial Distress ,
Office Space ,
Remote Working ,
Restructuring ,
Section 365
Guaranties are a common feature in fund finance transactions. Particularly in NAV loans, upstream and affiliate (or “sideways”) guaranties are used. Below we discuss some of the context for the use of these types of...more
5/19/2023
/ Borrowers ,
Credit Agreements ,
Credit Facilities ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Financing ,
Investment Funds ,
Investment Management ,
Lenders ,
Loan Guaranties ,
Loans ,
NAV
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
As many parties expected, on March 17, 2023 SVB Financial Group (“SVB Financial” or the “Debtor”) the holding company for Silicon Valley Bank, commenced a case under chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code (the...more
3/22/2023
/ Bankruptcy Code ,
Banks ,
Chapter 11 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Deposit Accounts ,
Depository Institutions ,
FDIC ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Insolvency ,
Receivership ,
Silicon Valley
A lot of ink has been spilled in the last 72 hours regarding the historic developments involving Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. Our quick summary of the facts and law is below. Cadwalader will continue to monitor...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
The “crypto winter” of 2022 brought a bear market and a recent wave of bankruptcies to the crypto industry, leaving some retail customers of crypto exchanges frozen out of their accounts. As the bankruptcy filings mounted...more
1/17/2023
/ Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Contract Terms ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Crypto Exchanges ,
Cryptoassets ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Deposit Accounts ,
Digital Assets ,
Digital Currency ,
Interest Payments ,
Ownership Rules ,
Stablecoins ,
Terms of Use
On April 13, 2022, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled in CoFund II LLC v. Hitachi Capital America Corp. that a junior creditor breached a turnover provision in an intercreditor agreement when it applied a senior...more
On December 22, 2021, Judge Mary Walrath of the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware held in In re The Hertz Corp. that redemption premiums may potentially qualify as unmatured interest, and that, to the extent that...more
1/14/2022
/ Bankruptcy Court ,
Chapter 11 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Creditors ,
Debtors ,
Hertz ,
Liquidation ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Post-Petition Interest ,
Premiums ,
Reorganizations ,
Unsecured Debt ,
Wells Fargo
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 December 19, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (the “Second Circuit”) affirmed a ruling of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (the “District Court”)...more
1/8/2020
/ Acquisitions ,
Appeals ,
Bankruptcy Code ,
Chapter 11 ,
Clearing Agencies ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Contract Terms ,
Creditors ,
Debt Restructuring ,
Financial Institutions ,
Fraudulent Conveyance ,
Intermediaries ,
Leveraged Buyout ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Safe Harbors ,
Section 546(e) ,
Securities Transactions ,
Shareholders ,
Unsecured Debt
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 March 18, 2019, Judge Stuart M. Bernstein of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York issued a decision enforcing a mortgage lender’s claim for a prepayment premium (a/k/a make-whole or...more
3/28/2019
/ Acceleration ,
Bankruptcy Court ,
Chapter 11 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Consumer Financial Products ,
Default ,
Loan Agreements ,
Make-Whole Premium ,
Mortgage Lenders ,
Mortgages ,
Prepayments
The recent decision by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in Citibank, N.A. v. Norske Skogindustrier ASA could be an important consideration for future drafting and interpretation of debt...more
Although almost eight years have lapsed since the chapter 11 cases of Tulsa, Oklahoma-based SemCrude L.P. were confirmed, many of the issues at the forefront of those cases are re-emerging in light of the recent uptick in oil...more
10/14/2015
/ Article 9 ,
Chapter 11 ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Commodities ,
Corporate Restructuring ,
Energy Sector ,
Lenders ,
Liens ,
Mineral Leases ,
Mineral Rights ,
Oil & Gas ,
Petroleum Refining ,
Producers ,
Secured Debt
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