[Crypto-Bankruptcy Series] The Implications of CeFi and DeFi in Bankruptcy: A Hot Take on Celsius
by | posted in: Bankruptcy, Crypto-Bankruptcy Series, Cryptocurrency, International and Comparative, Jurisprudence, Priority | 0

By Kelvin FK Low and Timothy Chan (National University of Singapore)

Kelvin FK Low
Timothy Chan

Note: This post is the eighth post in a series of posts on bankruptcies of cryptocurrency companies and the emerging issues they pose. Previous posts in the series include:

1. The FTX Bankruptcy: First Week Motions, Jurisdictional Squabbling, and Other Unusual Developments, by Megan McDermott

2. Quantifying Cryptocurrency Claims in Bankruptcy: Does the Dollar Still Reign Supreme?, by Ingrid Bagby, Michele Maman, Anthony Greene, and Marc Veilleux

3. The Public and the Private of the FTX Bankruptcy, by Diane Lourdes Dick and Christopher K. Odinet

4. Staking, Yield Farming, Liquidity Mining, Crypto Lending – What are the Customer’s Risks?, by Matthias Lehmann et al. (University of Vienna)

5. The Treatment of Cryptocurrency Assets in Bankruptcy, by Steven O. Weise, Wai L. Choy, and Vincent Indelicato

6. FTX Bankruptcy – A Failure of Centralized Governance in the Name of Decentralized Cryptocurrencies, by Vivian Fang

7. Roundup: Celsius Network LLC, by Jessica Graham

This series is being managed by the Bankruptcy Roundtable and Xiao Ma, SJD at Harvard Law School, xma [at] sjd [dot] law [dot] harvard [dot] edu.

Check the HLS Bankruptcy Roundtable periodically for additional contributing posts by academics and practitioners from institutions across the country.

***

The difference between owning (i.e. having property rights in something) and being owed (i.e. having a right against a person by way of obligation) is at its most stark in bankruptcy. In the wake of multiple bankruptcies of crypto entities last year, the question of whether customers of these entities owned or were merely owed has come into sharp focus, especially when the entity has been engaged in what the industry has coined CeFi (centralized finance), which involves the lending and borrowing of crypto assets. In theory, the same questions are engaged in a DeFi (decentralized finance) transaction, where one of the roles is substituted by a peer (often pseudonymous) rather than a centralized intermediary. Determining whether property in “loaned” crypto assets belongs to a failed borrower (whether centralized intermediary or peer) who simply owes an obligation to the lender or remains with the lender throughout involves a question of characterization. Two recent motions in the Celsius litigation are instructive of how this characterization is undertaken by the courts and although the case involves CeFi rather than DeFi, there is no reason why the same reasoning does not extend to DeFi as well.

The first motion pertained to customers with assets in Celsius’ “Earn” accounts, who had been promised as high as 18% interest on sums deposited. Despite their strenuous arguments to the contrary, the bankruptcy court decided that those assets had become the property of Celsius, giving effect to Terms of Use stating that those customers had “grant[ed] Celsius … all right and title to such Eligible Digital Assets, including ownership rights”. This outcome in truth was always inevitable, perhaps even in the absence of such clear language. 

The arrangement mirrors exactly the traditional position relating to interest-bearing bank accounts, established since the mid-19th century in the common law world to entail an obligation owing to customers rather than ownership of money by customers. Cases like Thompson v Riggs 72 U.S. 663 (1866) and Foley v Hill (1848) 2 HLC 28, 9 ER 1002 decided that absent any special conditions, money deposited with a bank became the property of the bank, with the customer obtaining a claim to the return of the same amount of money (plus interest) on demand. The obligation is fungible (the bank need not return the same coins and notes deposited) and forms the basis for borrowing short and lending long that is the backbone of modern banking. This characterization is necessary because money, unlike some other property, does not have any inherent utility except by way of alienation. A bank uses deposited money as it pleases (usually by extending loans itself), makes what profit it can, and pays back to its customer the principal and agreed interest. How could a bank generate profits off the money were it otherwise? 

It is the same with most crypto assets such as Bitcoin. Whether described as staking, liquidity mining, or onward lending, all these processes involve committing the assets in a manner inconsistent with the continued ownership of the original owner of the assets. In the first motion, Celsius’s customers argued that the Terms of Use stated that they had “loaned” the Earn assets to Celsius, claiming this meant that they retained ownership of those assets. Terminology has never been conclusive in an exercise in legal characterization, but this argument was doomed to fail for a more basic reason. The term “loan” has two different meanings. The customers argued that they believed they had made a “loan” in the non-fungible sense of the term (the exact thing must be returned), as where one lends a chattel which possession itself has utility. Many examples abound. A book can be read and enjoyed; a car can be used to ferry passengers for a profit. Such “loans” can be, and are often structured, as not involving the transfer of ownership from lender to borrower. No library transfers ownership of library books to patrons in return for a mere obligation for their return. Likewise, hire agreements of cars are careful to spell out that ownership of said vehicles remains with the hire company throughout. 

However, most crypto assets are not suitable for non-fungible loans since, like money, they can only be enjoyed through alienation. As Warren Buffett famously explained in a CNBC interview, “If you said … for a 1% interest in all the farmland in the United States, pay our group $25 billion, I’ll write you a check this afternoon,” Buffett said. ”[For] $25 billion I now own 1% of the farmland. [If] you offer me 1% of all the apartment houses in the country and you want another $25 billion, I’ll write you a check, it’s very simple. Now if you told me you own all of the bitcoin in the world and you offered it to me for $25 I wouldn’t take it because what would I do with it? I’d have to sell it back to you one way or another. It isn’t going to do anything. The apartments are going to produce rent and the farms are going to produce food.” Without treading on the controversial question of whether all or most crypto assets are thus Ponzi schemes, the point holds that simply holding crypto assets doesn’t generate any returns so, unless a loan of crypto assets is characterized in the same way as a loan of money, it is difficult to see what the point of the loan is (from the borrower’s point of view) and how the borrower is supposed to generate the profits in order to pay the lender the interest it has promised. As a result, it is unsurprising that the court found that the customers had clearly made a “loan” of the fungible rather than non-fungible variety, where ownership of the property passed to Celsius in return for an obligation to return an equivalent sum plus interest.

More fortunate than the Earn customers were a group of customers who had placed crypto assets in Celsius’ “Custody” accounts. On 20 December 2022, Judge Glenn granted a motion authorizing their withdrawal of, among others, certain digital assets which had “only ever” been held in those accounts. The crucial difference was that the Terms of Use stated that ownership in crypto assets deposited in the “Custody Program” would “at all times remain with the [user]” and that Celsius would not “transfer, sell, loan or otherwise rehypothecate” such assets. The bankruptcy court agreed that assets in such “Custody Wallets” did not form part of the Celsius estate. This again is undoubtedly correct. Though the legal principles relating to ownership of crypto assets remain unsettled, in the absence of countervailing commercial indications and outside of the security context, the passing of title should be governed by the intention of the parties, such consensualism being consistent both with longstanding authority (see e.g. Cochrane v Moore (1890) 25 QBD 57; Metropolitan Trust Co of New York v McKinnon 172 F. 846 (1909)) and contemporary theories of justice in transfer. 

One theme that emerges from these two motions is the importance of the characterization process: intention is the starting point but the commercial nature of the transaction cannot be ignored. Yet, characterization is distinct from questions of actual segregation, which may pose independent obstacles to recovery. In the Celsius case it seems that customer assets were in fact segregated in the “Custody Wallets”. The “Custody” claimants were remarkably fortunate in this respect. Although ownership is superior to obligation in bankruptcy, its advantage is contingent on the customer’s ability to identify the property owned. Some crypto entities, such as FTX, are alleged to have been treated customer assets as belonging to them even though their terms of use indicate otherwise, in which case they would likely have been long dissipated or irretrievably commingled. In such cases, even if custody is taken to mean the retention of ownership, some aspects of crypto-systems may thwart customers’ claims. Given the pseudonymity and immutability of blockchains, establishing the ownership of property you are unable to identify or recover will likely prove to be cold comfort.

[Crypto-Bankruptcy Series] Roundup: Celsius Network LLC
by | posted in: Bankruptcy, Chapter 11, Crypto-Bankruptcy Series, Cryptocurrency, Priority | 0

By Jessica R. Graham (Harvard Law School)

Jessica R. Graham

Note: This post is the seventh post in a series of posts on bankruptcies of cryptocurrency companies and the emerging issues they pose. Previous posts in the series include:

1. The FTX Bankruptcy: First Week Motions, Jurisdictional Squabbling, and Other Unusual Developments, by Megan McDermott

2. Quantifying Cryptocurrency Claims in Bankruptcy: Does the Dollar Still Reign Supreme?, by Ingrid Bagby, Michele Maman, Anthony Greene, and Marc Veilleux

3. The Public and the Private of the FTX Bankruptcy, by Diane Lourdes Dick and Christopher K. Odinet

4. Staking, Yield Farming, Liquidity Mining, Crypto Lending – What are the Customer’s Risks?, by Matthias Lehmann et al. (University of Vienna)

5. The Treatment of Cryptocurrency Assets in Bankruptcy, by Steven O. Weise, Wai L. Choy, and Vincent Indelicato

6. FTX Bankruptcy – A Failure of Centralized Governance in the Name of Decentralized Cryptocurrencies, by Vivian Fang

This series is being managed by the Bankruptcy Roundtable and Xiao Ma, SJD at Harvard Law School, xma [at] sjd [dot] law [dot] harvard [dot] edu.

Check the HLS Bankruptcy Roundtable periodically for additional contributing posts by academics and practitioners from institutions across the country.

***

On January 4th, 2023, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York issued its opinion regarding digital assets held by Celsius Network LLC (“the Debtor”). In a decision that arguably could have lasting implications for crypto bankruptcies and the crypto industry more generally, the Court held that the assets deposited with Celsius in one of its programs, the “Earn” rewards program, had been relinquished to the Debtor and thus are to be considered assets of the Debtor’s bankruptcy estate. For customers with assets in the Debtor’s “Earn” program, this decision means that they will not be entitled to an immediate return of their invested assets. Instead, “Earn” customers will be treated as general unsecured creditors and receive payment at the end of the Debtor’s bankruptcy.  Such payments will be made only after payment to any other priority creditors, and “Earn” customers will receive payments proportionate to the amount of their investments out of whatever money may be left at the end of the bankruptcy.

The Debtor offered three types of accounts: (1) “Earn”; (2) “Custody”; and (3) “Borrow”. This holding only applies to the “Earn” accounts because of the nature of the accounts. Assets deposited through the “Earn” program were comingled across consumers, and the Debtor had the right to invest these assets or use them for other purposes. In registering for one of these accounts, the Terms of Use dictated that customers were transferring ownership of assets deposited in the account to the Debtor, “in every sense and for all purposes.” Thus, the Court reasoned, these assets must be considered the property of the estate.  In interpreting the Terms of Use as an enforceable contract, the Court rejected the claim that these agreements were merely clickwrap. The Court also rejected the claim that the terms of use were ambiguous, stating that nothing in the agreement suggested customers would retain a lien on the assets they deposited. The Court did, however, leave the door open for customers to challenge the possession of their specific assets with individual defenses—the Court only articulated an assumption that the assets were the estate’s property.

The overarching theme is the importance of digital asset holders to carefully read the terms of use when opening accounts. Assets held in the other two types of accounts—“Custody” and “Borrow”—will need to be addressed in separate litigation, as they are governed by different customer agreements and management standards.

Several law firms have taken note of this decision, providing takeaways and analyses of impact. Sidley stresses the importance of carefully reading (for investors) or drafting (for market participants) the terms of use agreements and their related marketing materials. Morrison Foerster emphasizes the special nature of the decision, reasoning that it is unlikely to be determinative for other crypto cases because of the reliance on specific terms of use. Husch Blackwell highlights the importance of the Court’s imminent decisions regarding the other types of accounts, noting that the implications of those decisions could alter the landscape of crypto in the future.

[Crypto-Bankruptcy Series] The Treatment of Cryptocurrency Assets in Bankruptcy
by | posted in: Bankruptcy, Chapter 11, Crypto-Bankruptcy Series, Cryptocurrency, Priority, Statutory Interpretation | 0

By Steven O. Weise, Wai L. Choy, and Vincent Indelicato (Proskauer Rose LLP)

Steven O. Weise
Wai L. Choy
Vincent Indelicato

Note: This post is the fifth post in a series of posts on bankruptcies of cryptocurrency companies and the emerging issues they pose. Previous posts in the series include:

1. The FTX Bankruptcy: First Week Motions, Jurisdictional Squabbling, and Other Unusual Developments, by Megan McDermott

2. Quantifying Cryptocurrency Claims in Bankruptcy: Does the Dollar Still Reign Supreme?, by Ingrid Bagby, Michele Maman, Anthony Greene, and Marc Veilleux

3. The Public and the Private of the FTX Bankruptcy, by Diane Lourdes Dick and Christopher K. Odinet

4. Staking, Yield Farming, Liquidity Mining, Crypto Lending – What are the Customer’s Risks?, by Matthias Lehmann et al. (University of Vienna)

This series is being managed by the Bankruptcy Roundtable and Xiao Ma, SJD at Harvard Law School, xma [at] sjd [dot] law [dot] harvard [dot] edu.

Check the HLS Bankruptcy Roundtable periodically for additional contributing posts by academics and practitioners from institutions across the country.

***

The cryptocurrency market has experienced significant liquidity events, accelerating an industrywide sell-off and leaving the value of cryptocurrencies at historic lows—what many call a “crypto winter.” The idea that participants in the cryptocurrency industry, namely exchanges that operate platforms that allow users to transact in cryptocurrency, may resort to chapter 11 bankruptcy has created questions as to how such assets would be handled during a bankruptcy.

In “The Treatment of Cryptocurrency Assets in Bankruptcy,” Proskauer partners Steven O. Weise, Wai Choy, and Vincent Indelicato explore the question of whether crypto assets deposited by customers in a cryptocurrency exchange may be considered property of the bankruptcy estate and therefore not recoverable by the customer.  While some commentators have suggested that crypto assets might be considered property of the bankruptcy estate, existing common law, current provisions of Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) Article 8, and proposed amendments to the UCC recognize that if the arrangement and relationship between the exchange and its customers is one that is characterized as “custodial,” the crypto assets held by the exchange should remain property of the customers and, hence, not subject to dilution by general unsecured claim holders.  However, the analysis of when a custodial relationship exists will depend on the agreements and other facts of a particular relationship.

Click here to read the full article.

[Crypto Bankruptcy Series] Staking, Yield Farming, Liquidity Mining, Crypto Lending – What are the Customer’s Risks?
by | posted in: Bankruptcy, Bankruptcy Roundtable Updates, Crypto-Bankruptcy Series, Cryptocurrency, International and Comparative, Priority | 0

By Matthias Lehmann et al. (Universitat Wien)

Matthias Lehmann

Note: This post is the fourth post in a series of posts on bankruptcies of cryptocurrency companies and the emerging issues they pose. Previous posts in the series include:

1. The FTX Bankruptcy: First Week Motions, Jurisdictional Squabbling, and Other Unusual Developments, by Megan McDermott

2. Quantifying Cryptocurrency Claims in Bankruptcy: Does the Dollar Still Reign Supreme?, by Ingrid Bagby, Michele Maman, Anthony Greene, and Marc Veilleux

3. The Public and the Private of the FTX Bankruptcy, Diane Lourdes Dick and Christopher K. Odinet

This series is being managed by the Bankruptcy Roundtable and Xiao Ma, SJD at Harvard Law School, xma [at] sjd [dot] law [dot] harvard [dot] edu.

Check the HLS Bankruptcy Roundtable periodically for additional contributing posts by academics and practitioners from institutions across the country.

***

The consequences customers face in case a crypto exchange like FTX goes bankrupt are enormous, but they may be even more severe if they had previously staked their digital assets or engaged in a similar transaction. As a matter of fact, it is not a far-fetched to fret that a bankruptcy court may construe such a transaction as entailing an asset transfer to the exchange or a third party. In this case, the crypto assets – Bitcoin, Ether or token – would be considered as a part of the insolvency estate or as belonging to somebody else. Customer would have no propriety rights in them and be relegated to the status of mere creditors, with the prospect of receiving only a fraction of the asset’s value.

In this context, it is of paramount importance how the transaction in question is to be legally characterized. Characterization is the process by which an empirical phenomenon is attributed to a particular legal category. This exercise is not always easy, and it is particularly difficult with regard to the operations in the crypto space. There is hardly any literature on them, because they are in large part novel and unprecedented. The legal nature and effects of such operations depend in the first place on the terms and conditions to which they are submitted. But many of them use highly general notions and are legally unprecise. To achieve definite results, it is likely for a court to intuitively trying to associate the transactions described with a known category. This will be important in two respects.

First, the category chosen for a certain transaction will inform the conditions for its validity as well as its effects. In particular, it will decide whether the customer has transferred her rights fully and thus bears the full risk of the counterparty’s insolvency, or whether the transaction merely creates a more limited right in rem of the crypto exchange or a third party.

Second, characterization is also important to identify the national law governing these transactions. Conflict-of-laws rules will be applied by a bankruptcy court to determine, as a preliminary question, whether an asset forms part of the insolvency estate or whether it belongs to another person. There are different conflict-of-laws rules for different types of transaction, which point to different laws depending on the transaction’s characteristics.

Which category a transaction is shoehorned in will thus be decisive in several ways for the position of the crypto investor. But how can they be legally characterized?

Admittedly, this is not easy. To take just one example, the legal nature of staking is quite doubtful. Potentially, it could be considered as a secured transaction because it enables to ‘slash’ the investor’s crypto asset in case of manipulative activity or inactivity of a node. But it may also be compared to a deposit or a loan of cryptos. It is even not excluded to view staking through the lenses of a partnership that may exist between all nodes of a platform, or as being constitutive of a trust.

Similar problems arise for yield farming, liquidity mining and crypto lending. These operations must be distinguished from staking and from each other, even though the lines are often blurred. How they are to be legally characterized is highly relevant for the position of the crypto investor.

Any characterization needs to reflect the terms and conditions, the typical intention of the parties, and the economic purpose of the transaction. But above all, it should be informed by the consequences it has for investor protection. Unless clearly indicated in the agreement and absolutely indispensable for achieving the purpose of the transaction, it should not be assumed that the investor intended to part with her ownership or other rights of entitlement. Where the terms and conditions are equivocal or ambiguous about this point, they should be interpreted against the person that formulated them, according to the time honoured “contra proferentem” principle for constructing constructs. When and for which transactions a transfer of property or other rights can be presumed will be the decisive question. The debate about this problem has just begun. Felix Krysa, Emeric Prévost, Fabian Schinerl, Robert Vogelauer and I have examined different options and made suggestions for precise characterization in a new paper.

Click here to read the full article.

[Crypto-Bankruptcy Series] The Public and the Private of the FTX Bankruptcy
by | posted in: Bankruptcy, Bankruptcy Administration and Jurisdiction, Chapter 11, Corporate Governance, Crypto-Bankruptcy Series, Cryptocurrency, Priority, Reorganization | 0

By Diane Lourdes Dick and Christopher K. Odinet (University of Iowa)

Diane Lourdes Dick
Christopher K. Odinet

Note: This post is the third post in a series of posts on bankruptcies of cryptocurrency companies and the emerging issues they pose.  Previous posts in the series include:

1. The FTX Bankruptcy: First Week Motions, Jurisdictional Squabbling, and Other Unusual Developments, by Megan McDermott

2. Quantifying Cryptocurrency Claims in Bankruptcy: Does the Dollar Still Reign Supreme?, by Ingrid Bagby, Michele Maman, Anthony Greene, and Marc Veilleux

This series is being managed by the Bankruptcy Roundtable and Xiao Ma, SJD at Harvard Law School, xma [at] sjd [dot] law [dot] harvard [dot] edu.

Check the HLS Bankruptcy Roundtable periodically for additional contributing posts by academics and practitioners from institutions across the country.

***

Bankruptcy has a public and a private side. The reorganization of a private company in chapter 11 has implications for the public, and, in some reorganizations, the public interest is quite substantial. The recent bankruptcy of the third largest crypto exchange in the world, FTX, represents just the kind of corporate restructuring where the public interest is front and center. Yet the public priority embedded in these proceedings has the potential to be overlooked. In this work, we aim to change that by shining light on the stakes, the costs, and the allocative decisions to be made in what will no doubt be described as one of the most consequential legal proceedings to happen in the world of crypto. Specifically, the outcome of these proceedings will help clear up what it means to hold crypto as a form of property, as well as the custodial v. proprietary nature of the relationship between crypto exchange companies and their customers as to rights in crypto assets. The answers to these questions will not only help resolve this bankruptcy but they will also guide lawmakers and regulators as they seek a way to regulate and police the crypto market in the future. As such, we question whether the private value capturing model that is chapter 11 is the right framework—particularly when it comes to the allocation of who bears the costs—for these largely public-oriented matters.

Click here to read the full article.

[Crypto-Bankruptcy Series] The FTX Bankruptcy: First Week Motions, Jurisdictional Squabbling, and Other Unusual Developments
by | posted in: Avoidance, Bankruptcy, Chapter 11, Chapter 15, Crypto-Bankruptcy Series, Cryptocurrency, International and Comparative, Priority | 0

By Megan McDermott (University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Law)

Megan McDermott

Note: This post is the first post in a series of posts on bankruptcies of cryptocurrency companies and the emerging issues they pose.  This series is being managed by the Bankruptcy Roundtable and Xiao Ma, SJD at Harvard Law School, xma [at] sjd [dot] law [dot] harvard [dot] edu.

Check the HLS Bankruptcy Roundtable periodically for additional contributing posts by academics and practitioners from institutions across the country.

***

The FTX bankruptcy isn’t just significant for its size and scope, but also for some extraordinary procedural wrinkles.  Here are a few notable developments from the first six weeks of the FTX bankruptcy:

  • Unusual delays. Most Chapter 11 bankruptcies are the products of weeks, if not months, of behind the scenes planning.  As a result, the typical debtor is able to file a flurry of first day motions that ensure a high degree of debtor control – at least during the early stages of bankruptcy, while creditors are scrambling to find representation and determine strategy.  Not so with FTX, due to the fact that current CEO John Ray took over from Sam Bankman-Fried immediately before the Chapter 11 filing.  Ray has testified that FTX’s abysmal record-keeping and absence of corporate controls have made it extremely difficult to get an accurate picture of FTX’s assets and liabilities.  As a result, the traditional first day motions were heard a week into proceedings, and second day motions were postponed to January 11. The delay makes it easier for individual creditors to organize push back to the debtors’ plans, which could in turn impact overall creditor recovery.
  • Jurisdictional squabbling. Bahamian regulators are mounting a spirited fight to retain control over the liquidation of FTX Digital Markets, one of the many entities in FTX’s global web of related businesses.  The Bahamian regulators backed off their initial strategy of asking the Southern District of New York to open a parallel Chapter 15 proceeding.  Nonetheless, they are currently arguing that the Delaware Bankruptcy Court lacks authority to halt liquidation under Bahamanian law.  Given the rumors that Bahamanian authorities encouraged (or possibly compelled) Bankman-Fried to give Bahamanian customers preferential treatment in withdrawing frozen funds, there is a lot at stake in this jurisdictional skirmish.  In his testimony to Congress, Ray mentioned this “extraordinary pushback” but expressed confidence that these efforts would be rejected in favor of the transparency and clarity that Chapter 11 promises to all stakeholders.
  • Sealed submissions. Despite this commitment to transparency, FTX has asked to file a variety of court submissions under seal, including creditor lists.  FTX’s lawyers argue that revealing creditor names would make them a target for hacking or, at the very least, poaching by competitors of FTX.  The U.S. Trustee has objected strenuously to sealing these records, on the grounds that these risks are the trade-offs of a public and transparent proceeding.  In addition, Dow Jones, Bloomberg, and other media interests have moved to intervene in order to oppose the debtor’s efforts to avoid disclosing creditor identities.  In the Celsius bankruptcy, the Southern District of New York decisively rejected efforts to keep parts of the docket under seal.  Judge Dorsey hasn’t taken a clear position yet but has agreed to keep creditor lists under seal – for now.
  • Preferential transfers. During Congressional questioning, Ray was asked about rumors of looting in the months preceding the Chapter 11 filing, as well as some dubious post-petition maneuvers.  There are also likely to be a number of insider transfers, especially since at least one of Bankman’s Fried’s parents (Stanford Law Professor Joseph Bankman) has reportedly received payments from FTX.  Transfers between FTX and Bankman-Fried and his family may be in the billions.  Expect some bombshells as FTX seeks to use Chapter 11 to avoid these transfers.
  • Property of the estate. Major stakeholders are already wrangling to have their assets returned on the ground that these assets should not be considered property of the estate.  Of particular note are two motions filed by committees representing U.S. and non-U.S. exchange customers.  The customers are arguing that they are entitled to have their crypto assets returned rather than having to wait in line for a pro rata recovery alongside other unsecured creditors.  Although some commentators have suggested that FTX’s terms of service may support these arguments, the legal authority for how to treat these assets is far from clear.  Another early mover is crypto lender BlockFi, which is staking its claim to 56 million Robinhood shares that Alameda Research had pledged as collateral shortly before FTX’s Chapter 11 filing.  These shares have lost around 40% of their value since early November, which is part of the reason BlockFi has filed its own Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the District of New Jersey.  Bankruptcy courts across the country will likely see many similar ripple effects before FTX’s creditors see any recovery.
  • Executory contracts. Given FTX’s lavish public relations spending and celebrity co-branding, many FTX partners are undoubtedly eager to extricate themselves from the now-disgraced company.  For example, the publisher of the League of Legends video game filed an early motion for relief from the automatic stay, asking the court’s permission to halt their contractual obligation to promote FTX at various events.  Right before the new year, FTX granted their wishes, moving to reject that cobranding deal alongside a long list of other executory contracts.  FTX’s motion details almost two dozen sponsorship deals, ranging from the Golden State Warriors to Berkeley Athletics to an international cricket competition.  FTX also hopes to cast aside paid celebrity endorsements from the likes of Gisele Bundchen and Shohei Otani.  In the motion, FTX explained that “the Contracts are not integral to the Debtors’ Chapter 11 efforts, are not otherwise beneficial to the Debtors’ estates and present burdensome liabilities.”  Accordingly, FTX requested that the contracts be deemed terminated immediately.  That means the Miami Heat Arena may soon be in the market for a new naming rights partner.  (See photo.)  [Editor’s Note: On January 11, 2023, the bankruptcy court approved the termination of FTX’s naming rights: https://www.nba.com/news/miami-dade-coun…]

Balancing Debtor and Creditors’ Interests in Bankruptcy Reorganization Proceedings: Best Practices for the Procedural Design of Claims’ Classification
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Reform, Chapter 11, Cramdown and Priority, International and Comparative, Priority, Reorganization | 0

By Anaïs Alle (Harvard Law School, L.L.M. 2022)

Anaïs Alle

Reorganization proceedings, in contrast to liquidation sales, constitute a rather recent development in insolvency law. Embodied by Chapter 11 in the US, this trend has been further brought to light by the European Directive 2019/1023 of 20 June, 2019 on restructuring and insolvency, that requires EU Member States to set up a preventive reorganization framework. Reorganization plans typically involve complex interplays between competing stakeholders’ interests, and the classification of claims for the purpose of voting on the reorganization plan is both an illustration of these tensions and a mechanism designed to address them. Choices of European policymakers, especially in France where the classification of claims represents a major change, can offer new perspectives on best practices for modern reorganization plans. The classification of claims is an important feature of reorganization proceedings. First, it appears as a countermeasure to the debtor-in-possession and other debtor-friendly rules. Second, it promotes the adoption of a plan against hold-out problems from hostile minority or out-of-the-money creditors. Third, it provides guarantees of fairness and viability of the plan, through the consent of a representative majority of creditors.

Given the importance of claims’ classification, the design of classes has drawn a lot of attention during the implementation of the EU Directive in France. Debtor-in-possession proceedings leave the debtor with significant power over classification, with the potential for abuse through “gerrymandering”, i.e., the strategic classification of claims to create an artificially accepting impaired class, ensuring the adoption of a potentially unfair plan. Bankruptcy statutes fail to provide clear and binding criteria to restrict such strategies. Similarly, Chapter 11 case law – although precedents, notably Matter of Greystone III Joint Venture out of the 5th Circuit, have suggested a ban on gerrymandering – has been reluctant to challenge debtors’ classifications. Instead, policymakers have set protective rules for creditors, mainly the best-interest-of-creditors test and the absolute priority rule. However, these protections may be circumvented and difficult to enforce.

In this context, procedural design is suggested as a means of reconciling debtor-friendly rules with effective protections for creditors, thus ensuring a balance of interests in reorganization proceedings. First, effective judicial review over the classification of claims appears desirable and is addressed under French law with (i) the appointment of a trustee, with limited powers, assisting the debtor in possession, and (ii) an early, dedicated and fast-tracked appeal against the classification of claims, allowing the judicial resolution of disputes over classification before the adoption of the plan. A similar result may be achieved through a reinforcement of classification hearings. Second, hostile classification strategies could be avoided through prepackaged plans, in which the debtor negotiates with its creditors prior to filing for Chapter 11. French law provides for a dedicated two-stage framework through conciliation proceedings – confidential negotiations under the supervision of a court-appointed professional – followed by fast-tracked reorganization proceedings, where the plan can be adopted through a vote in classes that have been designed within the conciliation negotiations. Such proceedings are consistent with the modern negotiated, deal-approach to reorganizations while making use of insolvency mechanisms against hold-out problems, thus favoring a preventive and pragmatic solution to distressed situations.

 

Click here to read the full article.

Bankruptcy-Remote Structuring: Reallocating Risk Through Law
by | posted in: Bankruptcy, Corporate Governance, Priority, Special Purpose Entities and Securitization | 0

By Steven Schwarcz (Stanley A. Star Distinguished Professor of Law & Business, Duke University School of Law)

Steven Schwarcz

Bankruptcy-remote structuring, a legal strategy with potential public policy implications, is crucial both to a range of important financial transactions—including securitization, project finance, covered bonds, oil-and-gas and mineral production payments, and other forms of structured financing—and to the ring-fencing of utilities and other publicly essential firms. In finance, the goal is contractually to reallocate risk by structuring securities-issuing entities that, absent the bankruptcy risks inherent to operating businesses, can attract investments based on specified cash flows. In ring-fencing, the goal is contractually to structure firms to minimize bankruptcy risks, thereby assuring their continued business operations.

Parties engaging in bankruptcy-remote structuring usually seek to reallocate risk more optimally, including by reducing information asymmetry and assigning higher risk to yield-seeking investors, thereby enabling firms to diversify and lower their costs of capital. In reality, bankruptcy-remote structuring can sometimes create harmful externalities. Some blame bankruptcy-remote securitization transactions, for example, for triggering the 2007-08 global financial crisis by shifting risk from contracting parties to the public.

This Article undertakes a normative analysis of bankruptcy-remote structuring, examining the extent to which parties should have the right to reallocate bankruptcy risk. It is the first to do so both from the standpoint of public policy—examining how bankruptcy-law policy should limit freedom of contract; and also from the standpoint of cost-benefit analysis (“CBA”)—examining how externalities should limit freedom of contract.

Traditionally, CBA weighs overall costs and benefits regardless of who pays the costs and who receives the benefits. That model makes sense for a neutral governmental assessment of costs and benefits, such as deciding whether to enact new regulation. In bankruptcy-remote structuring, however, the contracting parties both advocate and significantly stand to gain from the project. From a public policy standpoint, an impartial assessment of these private actions should weigh the socially relevant costs and benefits.

In that weighing, the Article explains why the socially relevant benefits of project finance that is used to facilitate the construction of critical infrastructure projects like powerplants and toll roads, as well as the socially relevant benefits of ring-fencing that is used to protect critical utilities, should exceed the socially relevant costs. However, for more generic structured finance transactions, like securitization, the CBA weighing is more difficult. These types of bankruptcy-remote transactions have valuable public benefits that are difficult to quantify. Their social costs are also difficult to quantify. Given these difficulties, the Article merely categorizes the benefits and costs without purporting to conclude how they balance. This approach has important precedent, including for assessing the costs and benefits of the Volcker Rule.

Finally, the Article examines how to reform bankruptcy-remote structuring to reduce its externalities, thereby rebalancing the costs and benefits to try to achieve net positive benefits.

Among other things, it compares the European Union’s regulatory framework that creates incentives for simple, transparent, and standardized (“STS”) securitization transactions and urges U.S. lawmakers to consider similar securitization reforms.

The full article is available here.

Bankruptcy Court Ruling Imposes Lender Liability
by | posted in: Bankruptcy, Corporate Governance, Fiduciary Duties, Priority | 0

By Daniel S. Shamah, Jeff Norton, Jennifer Taylor, Sung Pak, and Joshua Chow (O’Melveny & Myers LLP)

“Lender liability” is an umbrella term often used to describe claims against lenders who overstep their boundaries when seeking to enforce a loan.  It embraces both contractual and tort-based theories of liability, including claims for breach of contract, breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and fiduciary duty claims, as well as bankruptcy-based theories like equitable subordination.  While courts have historically held that lender liability claims are difficult to sustain, there are cases that give guidance on how lenders cross the line and the consequences of doing so.  In this recent article, the authors highlight one recent Texas bankruptcy court decision in which a court determined that a lender engaged in the kind of egregious conduct that could lead to disallowance of a loan and an award of damages and interest.  Lenders in particular should study this case closely for tips on how to avoid these landmines.

The full article is available here.

 

Voting Rights Assignment Unenforceable, but Subordinated Creditor Lacked Standing to Participate in Chapter 11 Plan Confirmation Process
by | posted in: Chapter 11, Cramdown and Priority, Priority | 0

By Dan B. Prieto (Jones Day) and Mark G. Douglas (Jones Day)

Dan B. Prieto
Mark G. Douglas

In In re Fencepost Productions Inc., 629 B.R. 289 (Bankr. D. Kan. 2021), the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Kansas recently addressed the enforceability of a provision in a pre-bankruptcy subordination agreement under which a subordinated creditor assigned to a senior creditor its right to vote on any chapter 11 plan proposed for the borrower. The bankruptcy court ruled that such a provision is not enforceable because it conflicts with the Bankruptcy Code. In a twist, however, the court concluded that the subordinated creditor lacked “prudential standing” to participate in the confirmation process because it was extremely out-of-the-money and therefore had no stake in the outcome of the case, but was attempting to assert the rights of third parties.

Courts disagree over whether an assignment of plan voting rights in an intercreditor or subordination agreement is enforceable. Regardless of the particular approach adopted by a court on this issue, the growing consensus is that agreements that seek to limit or waive junior creditors’ voting rights must contain express language to that effect. The ruling in Fencepost adds yet another chapter to the ongoing debate on this issue.

 The Fencepost court’s conclusion that the subordinated creditor lacked prudential standing would appear to be driven in part by the facts of the case, which involved a subordinated, clearly out-of-the-money creditor intent upon impeding an otherwise consensual reorganization.

The Bankruptcy Code, however, expressly provides to the contrary by, among other things, giving every “party in interest” (including creditors and interest holders, without making an exception in cases where there is no value available for distribution to them), the right to appear and be heard “on any issue” in a chapter 11 case, the right to vote on a chapter 11 plan, and the right to object to confirmation of a plan. These provisions arguably indicate that Congress intended to modify or abrogate prudential standing requirements when it enacted the Bankruptcy Code. Moreover, the “rights” any out-of-the-money creditor or shareholder would be seeking to enforce by participating in the confirmation process are arguably their own, rather than the rights of third parties.

A logical extension of the rationale articulated in Fencepost is that clearly out-of-the-money creditors or shareholders of an insolvent corporation would never have prudential standing to participate in the chapter 11 plan confirmation process. That approach would be contrary to court rulings and general practice in many chapter 11 cases.

The full article can be accessed here.

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