A bankruptcy trustee's ability to avoid and recover pre-bankruptcy preferential transfers is essential to preserving or augmenting the estate for the benefit of all stakeholders. In 2019, however, the Bankruptcy Code was...more
Some courts permit debtors to designate vendors crucial to their business as “critical vendors.” These vendors supply debtors with necessary goods or services. Debtors are permitted to pay them amounts owing when a...more
Any creditor that has experienced more than a few customers or borrowers filing for bankruptcy is aware that there is a risk of being sued by a trustee to avoid transfers that the creditor received prior to the bankruptcy...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
In Schoenmann v. Bank of the West (In re Tenderloin Health), 849 F.3d 1231 (9th Cir. 2017), a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently addressed as a matter of apparent first impression...more
Among the required elements of a claim to avoid a preferential transfer under section 547(b) of the Bankruptcy Code is that, if the creditor-transferee were permitted to retain a pre-bankruptcy payment, it would end up being...more
In what appears to be a matter of first impression, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois recently held that payments made to investors in a two tiered securitization structure commonly employed in...more
On December 18, 2014, Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Sontchi issued an opinion granting summary judgment in favor of defendant and against trustee who sought to avoid and recover $1,181,583.84 as preferential transfers pursuant...more
On December 17, 2013, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued an opinion in the matter of Grant, Konvalinka & Harrison, P.C. v. C. Kenneth Still, (Case No. 12-6374) resolving two bankruptcy issues of...more