Category: Bankruptcy Generally

  • Fake and Real People in Bankruptcy

    Posted by

    Melissa Jacoby

    This draft essay, Fake and Real People in Bankruptcy, just posted on SSRN, is considerably less far along than Unbundling Business Bankruptcy Law, posted last week. Fake and Real starts with a Third Circuit case that tends to be less well known: it upheld the dismissal of an individual bankruptcy filer whose primary asset was a home he had built with his own hands. Perhaps you will find that story relevant to current debates about what is permissible in large chapter 11 cases. Like Unbundling Business Bankruptcy Law, Fake and Real reflects some of my in-depth research on The Weinstein Company.  

    Here is the abstract: 

    This draft essay explores how the bankruptcy system is structurally biased in favor of artificial persons – for-profit companies, non-profit enterprises, and municipalities given independent life by law – relative to humans. The favorable treatment extends to foundational issues such as the scope and timing of permissible debt relief, the conditions to receiving any bankruptcy protections, and the flexibility to depart from the Bankruptcy Code by asserting that doing so will maximize economic value. The system's bias contributes to the "bad-apple-ing" of serious policy problems, running counter to other areas of law have deemed harms like discrimination to be larger institutional phenomena. These features also make bankruptcy a less effective partner in the broader policy project of deterring, remedying, and punishing enterprise misconduct.

  • Unbundling Business Bankruptcy Law

    Posted by

    Melissa Jacoby

    A long-in-process draft article has just become available to be downloaded and read here. Comments remain welcome.  The Weinstein Company bankruptcy features prominently in this draft article. 

    Every contract in America contains an invisible exception: different enforcement rules apply if a party files for bankruptcy. Overriding state contract law, chapter 11 of the federal Bankruptcy Code gives bankrupt companies enormous flexibility to decide what to do with its pending contracts. Congress provided this controversial tool to chapter 11 debtors to increase the odds that a company can reorganize. To promote this objective while also preventing abuse and protecting stakeholders, Congress embedded this tool and others in an integrated package deal, including creditor voting. The tool was not meant as a standalone benefit for solvent private parties to pluck from the process for their own benefit, like an apple from a tree.

    In recent decades, the chapter 11 package deal has been unbundled in practice, typically on grounds of economic urgency. While scholars and policymakers have attended to the quick going-concern sales of companies featured in unbundled bankruptcies, they have not sufficiently explored the challenges associated with a contract-intensive business.

    To help fill that gap, this draft article illustrates how the ad hoc procedures used to manage quick sales of contract-intensive businesses can undercut two major chapter 11 objectives: maximizing economic value and fair distribution. They amount to a wholesale delegation of a substantial federal bankruptcy entitlement to a solvent third party. In addition to the impact on economic value and distribution, this draft article also explores a Constitutional problem with this practice: it arguably exceeds the scope of the federal bankruptcy power.

     

  • Private Equity Debt Shenanigans Conference

    Posted by

    Mitu Gulati

    I'm obsessed with debt shenanigans and, in particular, the emergence of an entire industry (or so it seems) of lawyers who specialize in finding and exploiting contract loopholes in places where the parties to the transaction had no idea there were gaps.  And there are others who defend against this.  (Anyone remember J.Screwed or Windstream?). 

    One area where the payouts of successful loophole detection and exploitation has shown big returns is the world of Private Equity. 

    And now the Penn Law Review is hosting a conference on this topic. (Okay — Their description of the topic is slightly different than mine).  Yay!

    Call for papers is below:

    The University of Pennsylvania Law Review will host its annual symposium on Friday, October 7, 2022, in-person. This year’s topic, “Debt Market Complexity: Shadowed Practices and Financial Injustice”, will explore the rise of increasingly complicated debt structures associated with private equity. We are issuing a call for papers for publication in the Law Review’s corresponding symposium issue.

    To submit a paper for consideration, please provide an abstract no longer than 750 words to symposium@pennlawreview.com by July 31st, 2022. If selected for publication, completed drafts will be due January 1st, 2023. 

    The complete call for papers, which includes more detail, is available here. 

  • Harmony or Mismatch? A virtual event on mass torts and bankruptcy on February 28

    Posted by

    Melissa Jacoby

    Just wanted to make sure Credit Slips readers were aware of this virtual event at noon Eastern/3 Pacific on February 28. Bonus: a link to a masterful analysis of the topic by Professor Elizabeth Gibson that the Federal Judicial Center published in 2005. (click here for information and registration)

    Event

  • Who extracts the benefits of big business bankruptcy?

    Posted by

    Melissa Jacoby

    NBRCThe Deal has a new podcast called Fresh Start hosted by journalist Stephanie Gleason. Stephanie and I recently chatted about big bankruptcies with litigation management at their core and the stakes those cases raise. We covered a lot of ground along the way, including non-debtor releases and the SACKLER Act, notice and voting, forum shopping, equitable mootness, the homogeneity of the restructuring profession, bankruptcy administrators and the United States Trustee system, and the skinny clause of the Constitution at the heart of all of this. We begin by reminiscing about the mass tort and future claims discussion during the deliberations of the National Bankruptcy Review Commission, for which Elizabeth Warren was the reporter, and how much has changed. Check it out here.

  • Recommended Reading: Bannon and Keith on Remote Court

    Posted by

    Melissa Jacoby

    Virtual court proceedings, an important public health intervention, have prompted many a judge and lawyer to envision heavy use of virtual hearings in more ordinary times – including in bankruptcy courts, which carry the highest federal court case load and feature financially distressed parties. The benefits of remote court are often touted, but what about the costs? Can "virtual justice" be achieved? To explore these issues, check out an article by Alicia Bannon and Douglas Keith of NYU's Brennan Center for Justice published in the Northwestern University Law Review.  

    Here is the abstract: 

    Across the country, courts at every level have relied on remote technology to adapt the justice system to a once-a-century global pandemic. This Essay describes and assesses this unprecedented journey into virtual justice, paying particular attention to eviction proceedings. While many judges have touted remote court as a revolutionary innovation, the reality is more complex. Remote court has brought substantial time savings and convenience to those who are able to access and use the required technology, but it has also posed hurdles to individuals on the other side of the digital divide, particularly self-represented litigants. The remote court experience has varied substantially depending on the nature of the proceedings, the rules and procedures courts put in place, and the relevant court users’ resources and tech savvy. Critically, the challenges posed by remote court have often been less visible to judges than the efficiency benefits. Drawing on these lessons, this Essay identifies a series of principles that should inform future uses of remote technology. Ultimately, new technology should be embraced when—and only when—it is consistent with fair proceedings and access to justice for all.

  • Why Aren’t All Judicial Recusal Lists Public?

    Posted by

    Adam Levitin

    Judges sometimes have to recuse themselves from hearing cases because of financial or personal interests. Some of those conflicts can be spotted in advance, and judges will have standing recusal lists filed with the clerk of the court to keep those cases from being assigned to them in the first place. Of course, these recusals can be weaponized:  if there are two judges in a district, and I know that the son of one is a partner at local law firm, I can hire that firm as my co-counsel and ensure that the case will go before the other judge.

    I got interested in this issue precisely because it enables judge-picking in two-judge divisions or districts. Some courts have their recusal lists up on the court's website. Others do not publish it. I was surprised today to be rebuffed when I asked the clerk's office for the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas about getting the recusal list for the two judges who presided last year over half of the large, public company bankruptcies in the entire nation.

    I wasn't given an explanation of why it isn't publicly available. As far as I can see, it should be. Parties should have a right to know why their case got assigned to a particular judge, not least because if the case assignment was the result of another party deliberately conflicting out a judge that might be grounds for seeking some sort of relief.  Perhaps there's some sort of privacy concern I don't see, but it strikes me that as a matter of course, all judicial recusal lists should be public and published. 

    But this also brings up another matter, which is the variation in practice among courts on a range of issues. It's beyond me why there isn't much greater uniformity in administrative practices among clerks' offices. As I've been crawling through courts' websites, I've been struck by the lack of uniformity on all sorts of things (e.g., some courts' ECF systems include time stamps, and others don't). The decentralized nature of the court administration doesn't strike me as optimal or even the result of a lot of thinking, but more the outgrowth of traditional local fiefdoms. It doesn't make a lot of sense in an internet-driven age with national practices. 

  • What’s Up With Oral Opinions in Bankruptcy?

    Posted by

    Adam Levitin

    I've been reading a lot of bankruptcy court transcripts this past year, and I've noticed how frequently judges issue rulings orally from the bench. Sometimes these rulings are clearly drafted out, complete with pincites, etc. Yet these decision are never published. The only way to find them is to dig through the transcripts, which are usually not available on the free public dockets, but only in PACER. 

    I've got a trio of concerns about this practice as well as some general questions about why this practice exists that I'm hoping our readership (particularly judges) can answer. 

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  • Book Rec: Range (or Yet Another Paean to Learning from Failure)

    Posted by

    Jason Kilborn

    With summer upon us, I thought others might be searching for good new reading, as I was when I took up a smart friend's longtime recommendation to read Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. So much good stuff in here. Perhaps contrary to the topic of the book, my brain is constantly in "insolvency policy" mode, so I was particularly interested in the many passages about famous people's meandering struggles to find their passion that catapulted them to success.

    Among my favorites was a description of Nike co-founder Phil Knight's entrepreneurship philosophy: [155] "his main goal for his nascent shoe company was to fail fast enough that he could apply what he was learning to his next venture. He made one short-term pivot after another, applying the lessons as he went." This is exactly the advice offered to country after country hoping to develop more effective SME-friendly bankruptcy regimes … as they unfortunately continue to stick to Old English draconian policies of imposing various restrictions and disabilities on post-bankruptcy entrepreneurs. Range offers yet another extended analysis of why this mindset is so persistent and so counterproductive. We need to let people fail, learn from whatever caused that failure (either mistakes or general economic volatility … or COVID) and get back on their feet quickly to move on to other ventures.

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  • Elliott, Apollo, Caesar’s Palace and a Bunch of Bankruptcy Law Professors

    Posted by

    Mitu Gulati

    One of the most dramatic stories in corporate finance and bankruptcy over the past decade has been the Caesar's Palace battle between a bunch of hard nosed distressed debt hedge funds and big bad private equity shops.  A bunch of masters of the universe types fighting it out to the death. (For my part: I'm interested in this because some of the big players from the Argentine pari passu battle are involved and there was a battle over the aggressive use of Exit Consents).

    Turns out that this Caesar's story is going to be front and center at an upcoming bankruptcy conference that three good friends, Bob Rasmussen, Mike Simkovic and Samir Parikh are running, where one of the authors of "The Caesar's Palace Coup", the FT's Sujeet Indap, is going to be on a panel with the heavy hitters, Ken Liang, Bruce Bennett and Richard Davis. I always find it fascinating to hear how financial journalists and law professors, both of whom have dug deep into a set of events, tell the same story. 

    The formal announcement, courtesy of Samir Parikh, is here:

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