Podcast - Credit Funds: Make-Wholes and Cramdowns: Understanding the Recent Second Circuit Momentive Decision
Bill on Bankruptcy: Secret Madoff Agreement May Harm Victims
Chapter 11 plans that propose to extinguish existing equity interests because the estate does not have any value remaining after the payment of creditor claims are common. The Bankruptcy Code's "absolute priority rule"...more
Hertz: Third Circuit Weighs In On Make-Whole Premiums And The “Solvent-debtor Exception” In Chapter 11 Cases - A handful of recent high-profile court rulings have considered whether a chapter 11 debtor is obligated to pay...more
A handful of recent high-profile court rulings have considered whether a chapter 11 debtor is obligated to pay postpetition, pre-effective date interest ("pendency interest") to unsecured creditors to render their claims...more
The Eighth Circuit recently weighed in on the issue of how to determine appropriate cramdown interest rates for secured creditors in Chapter 11 bankruptcy plans under Section 1129 of the Bankruptcy Code....more
Much has been written about how to calculate the appropriate interest rate for the deferred cash payments a debtor may propose to pay to a rejecting secured creditor under a “cramdown” Chapter 11 plan to meet the “fair and...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
In Momentive Performance Materials Inc. v. BOKF, NA (In re MPM Silicones, L.L.C.), 874 F.3d 787 (2d Cir. 2017), cert. denied, 138 S. Ct. 2653 (2018), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed a number of lower...more
A secured lender facing the prospect of having the essential provisions of its loan re-written in a Chapter 11 plan of reorganization will look for options to prevent or minimize the likelihood of such a revision. Chapter 11...more
Courts are often faced with the situation in which affiliated debtors file for Chapter 11 reorganization and request to have their cases jointly administered. While joint administration does not, without more, cause...more
Confirmation of a Chapter 11 plan of reorganization generally requires the consent of each impaired class of creditors. But, upon satisfaction of additional statutory requirements, a plan proponent can obtain confirmation of...more
The Second Circuit recently issued its decision on an appeal to the Momentive Performance Materials Inc. (“MPM”) bankruptcy case. Amongst other issues, the Court found that when determining the appropriate interest rate in a...more
In Momentive Performance Materials Inc. v. BOKF, NA (In re MPM Silicones, L.L.C.), 2017 BL 376794 (2d Cir. Oct. 27, 2017) ("Momentive"), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in a long-anticipated decision,...more
It is a unique characteristic of debt restructuring under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code that a majority of a class of creditors can accept a modification of the terms of the debts owed to the class members, as provided in...more
On October 20, in Matter of M.P.M. Silicones, L.L.C. (“M.P.M. Silicones”), the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that secured noteholders were not entitled to an approximately $200 million make-whole...more
The Situation: In In re MPM Silicones, L.L.C., secured noteholders argued that replacement notes distributed to them under a cram-down chapter 11 plan should bear market-rate interest rather than the lower formula rate...more
The Bankruptcy Code permits cramdown of a secured creditor but requires that the secured creditor receive deferred cash payments at least equal to the value of its collateral. This means that installment payments to the...more
In First Southern Nat’l Bank v. Sunnyslope Hous. LP (In re Sunnyslope Hous. LP), 2017 BL 216965 (9th Cir. June 23, 2017), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held en banc that, in determining whether a chapter 11...more
For the past several years, creditors in the Ninth Circuit were confounded by an interpretation of the bankruptcy code that permitted individual chapter 11 debtors to retain a significant portion of their assets without...more
While there are many factors that can lead a business or individual to file a chapter 11 bankruptcy petition seeking to reorganize a business, often times, particularly in a single-asset real estate case, the primary impetus...more
A debtor in a chapter 11 bankruptcy may treat a secured claim in one of two ways in its plan of reorganization: (1) the debtor may propose to cure any existing default, compensate the creditor for any loss sustained by the...more
In a recent Fifth Circuit decision, Western Real Estate Equities, LLC v. Village at Camp Bowie I, L.P., No. 12-10271 (5th Cir. 2013), the court held that the acceptance vote from a minimally and “artificially impaired” class...more