One year ago, we wrote that 2022 would be remembered in the corporate bankruptcy world for the “crypto winter” that descended in November 2022 with the spectacular collapse of FTX Trading Ltd., Alameda Research, and...more
On June 21, 2022, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri denied a motion to dismiss a fraudulent transfer claim asserted by the borrower’s lender against the borrower’s principals’ lender. Plaintiff...more
Traditional avoidance actions under the Bankruptcy Code, i.e., preferences and fraudulent transfers, have laudable goals: (a) to provide equal treatment to creditors of an insolvent company and (b) to claw back otherwise...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
In UMB Bank NA v. Sun Capital Partners V, LP (In re LSC Wind Down, LLC), Adv. Proc. No 19-50272 (Bankr. D. Del. Jan. 23, 2020), the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware denied a motion to dismiss a liquidating...more
Section 548 of the Bankruptcy Code enables trustees to avoid certain pre-bankruptcy transfers of “an interest of the debtor in property,” where the transfer was intended to defraud creditors or where the transfer was made...more
Fraudulent transfer law allows creditors and bankruptcy trustees, under certain circumstances, to sue transferees to recover funds received where a debtor’s transfers to the transferees actually or constructively defrauded...more
Bernie Madoff in New York, Tom Petters in Minneapolis, Allen Stanford in Houston, and Darren Berg in Seattle lead a rogues’ gallery of infamous Ponzi schemers. All are now serving time in prison. But the civil litigation...more
Recently, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania clarified that funds returned to the debtor are not recoverable as intentional fraudulent transfers. See Holber v. Nikparvar (In re Incare, LLC),...more
Section 544 of the Bankruptcy Code permits a bankruptcy trustee to avoid any transfer that would be avoidable by creditors under state fraudulent transfer law. Section 550 of the Bankruptcy Code permits the bankruptcy trustee...more
Fraudulent Transfer: A transfer by the debtor (including the incurring of an obligation by the debtor) voidable under Section 548 or under state law imported into the bankruptcy case through Section 544....more
Courts disagree as to whether the amount that a bankruptcy trustee or chapter 11 debtor-in-possession ("DIP") can recover in fraudulent transfer avoidance litigation should be capped at the total amount of unsecured claims...more
Bass, Berry & Sims attorney Chris Lazarini discussed a case involving an arbitration award and bankruptcy filing. The court ruled that where a bankruptcy action has been closed, the bankruptcy trustee's exclusive authority to...more
In the first installment of this article, we discussed the prevalence of preference litigation and some of the commonly-available defenses to business vendors to limit or even eliminate liability to the bankruptcy estate....more
The "Devil's Dictionary" is a quick-reference guide for commercial lenders and other restructuring professionals. In this series, we highlight many of the buzz words found in the Dictionary and used in today's bankruptcy...more
There are many tenants that are, shall we say, “problem children.” They pay late, open late, breach, junk up your strip or building, threaten, the works. Sometimes, the landlord finds it easier just to reach a lease...more
Recent EU Insolvency Regulation - The EC Regulations on Insolvency Proceedings (the "EIR") came into force throughout the European Union (the "EU") (except Denmark) on May 31, 2002 with the purpose of setting out the...more