Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Bankruptcy for Banks and Proposed Chapter 14
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Administration and Jurisdiction, Bankruptcy Reform, Financial Firms and Safe Harbors | 0

On November 13, 2018, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on “Big Bank Bankruptcy: 10 Years After Lehman Brothers,” in connection with the proposed “Taxpayer Protection and Responsible Resolution Act” (“TPRRA”). The TPRRA would add a new chapter 14 to the Bankruptcy Code, providing a recapitalization mechanism for bank holding companies or some other financial companies.

This version of chapter 14 would implement the “Single Point of Entry” financial company resolution model in bankruptcy. (The SPOE model contemplates that only a financial company’s top-level holding company would go into bankruptcy proceedings, with losses borne by its creditors, while material subsidiaries continue to operate as going concerns. For more, see here.) The bill contemplates a proceeding where the bank’s holding company would have a large amount of its long-term debt turned into equity over a 48 hour (likely weekend) period. The firm’s subsidiaries would continue to operate, but would be transferred over to a new, debt-free bridge company. The old holding company’s shareholders and creditors would have their claims handled through a bankruptcy process. The bill also included a 48 hour automatic stay on Qualified Financial Contracts (QFCs), but effectively requires their assumption by the new bridge company.

In his opening remarks, Senator Grassley noted that several similar bank bankruptcy proposals have been incorporated into bills introduced into both the Senate and House over the past several Congresses. (For Roundtable coverage of the 2016 and 2017 FIBA bills, click here, here, here, and here.) A principal difference, stressed by Senator Coons in his opening statement, was that the current bill would not affect Title II of the Dodd-Frank Act, as some prior provisions would have. The view that a special chapter 14 should complement, rather than replace the FDIC’s Orderly Liquidation Authority (OLA) is consistent with the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s report on OLA, recommending against its repeal, released earlier this year. (For Roundtable coverage of the OLA, click here and here.)

The Hearing featured testimony by Donald Bernstein (Davis Polk), Professor Mark Roe (Harvard Law School), and Stephen Hessler (Kirkland & Ellis).

Video and testimonies available here.

For previous Roundtable posts on the resolution of financial institutions, see Howell Jackson & Stephanie Massman, “The Resolution of Distressed Financial Conglomerates“; Stephen Lubben & Arthur Wilmarth, “Too Big and Unable to Fail“; Mark Roe’s “Don’t Bank on Bankruptcy”; Mark Roe & Stephen Adams, “Restructuring Failed Financial Firms in Bankruptcy: Selling Lehman’s Derivatives Portfolio”; David Skeel’s “Bankruptcy for Banks: A Tribute (and a Little Plea) for Jay Westbrook”; and, “Financial Scholars Submit Letter to Congress Opposing Repeal of Title II.”

(This post was authored by Ryan Rossner, J.D. ’19.)

White House Releases Memorandum on Orderly Liquidation Authority
by | posted in: Financial Firms and Safe Harbors | 0

On April 21, the White House released a memorandum placing a reconsideration of the Dodd-Frank Act’s Orderly Liquidation Authority (OLA) on the administration’s agenda. The memorandum directs the Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, to review and report on the OLA within 180 days, focusing on whether the OLA might lead to excessive risk-taking by financial institutions, counterparties, and creditors; whether invoking the OLA could lead to losses for the U.S. Treasury; and whether the OLA comports with a February 3 executive order outlining the president’s principles for financial regulation. Additionally, the memorandum calls for an assessment of whether bankruptcy, under a Bankruptcy Code amended to accommodate financial institutions, would be a more effective method of resolving failed financial companies than the OLA.

President Trump’s memorandum parallels congressional efforts to amend the Bankruptcy Code, but it is not structurally identical. Earlier in April, the House passed H.R. 1667, the Financial Institution Bankruptcy Act (FIBA), which would amend the Code to facilitate a single-point-of-entry (SPOE) resolution in which only the top-tier holding company of a financial institution enters bankruptcy, while the operating subsidiaries continue running as normal and receive support from the top-tier holding company. Nearly identical versions of FIBA passed the House in 2016 and 2015. FIBA, as passed by the House, would not repeal title II of the Dodd-Frank Act. It would thus make two resolution systems available for financial institutions.

Representative Jeb Hensarling’s CHOICE Act, a sweeping package of proposed financial reforms, also incorporates the text of FIBA as it currently stands. The CHOICE Act, however, would also repeal title II, leaving FIBA as the single formal structure for resolving financial institutions.

(By Rebecca Green, Harvard Law School, J.D. 2017.)

For previous Roundtable posts on the resolution of financial institutions, see Jackson & Massman, “The Resolution of Distressed Financial Conglomerates“; Lubben & Wilmarth, “Too Big and Unable to Fail“; and “Senator Reed Introduces Bill to Assess Systemic Risk Impact of ‘Bankruptcy-for-Banks’ Reforms.”

Developing a New Resolution Regime for Failed Systemically Important Financial Institutions
by | posted in: Financial Firms and Safe Harbors | 0

Stephanie Massman, J.D. 2015, Harvard Law School

 

In the wake of the 2007-2008 financial crisis, criticism surrounded not only the government bailouts, but also the decision to not bail out Lehman Brothers, which led to its lengthy and value-destructive chapter 11 bankruptcy. In response to this criticism, Congress enacted the Orderly Liquidation Authority (“OLA”), a regulatory alternative to bankruptcy for systemically important financial institutions (“SIFIs”), included as Title II of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. The OLA, although perceived to be a radical departure from traditional bankruptcy, incorporates many familiar resolution principles. The most significant departures from the Bankruptcy Code are those designed to ensure financial stability in the national and global economies in the event of a SIFI failure; because the Bankruptcy Code does not currently specifically provide for a SIFI failure, it does not address financial stability concerns at all. Furthermore, by banning future government bailouts and imposing new stays on qualified financial contracts, the OLA also seeks to correct skewed market discipline incentives surrounding SIFIs—including those arising due to the “Too Big To Fail” subsidy—which may have caused the “moral hazard” problems that were a contributing factor in the financial crisis. Unfortunately, the prescribed tactics for accomplishing a resolution under the OLA may in fact implicate new moral hazard concerns, which have yet to be addressed by regulators. What further remains to be seen is both the extent to which the regulatory agencies will assume their new statutorily ordained authority to regulate these SIFIs and the extent to which the market will find their regulations credible.

This article examines the current state of development of a resolution process for SIFIs under the OLA and evaluates how effective the OLA is likely to be in preserving financial stability and minimizing moral hazard.

To view the full article, click here.

House Judiciary Committee Approves Bill to Amend Chapter 11 for Financial Institution Bankruptcies
by | posted in: Financial Firms and Safe Harbors | 0

On February 11, 2016, the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee approved H.R. 2947—the Financial Institution Bankruptcy Act (FIBA)—which would amend the Bankruptcy Code to accommodate more smoothly the resolution of systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs). Introduced in July 2015, the current bill is essentially identical to an earlier version that passed the House in December 2014 (discussed in a Roundtable post here).

Like two pending Senate proposals, FIBA focuses on facilitating the recapitalization of a SIFI through a “single point of entry” (SPOE) approach similar to the strategy the FDIC has developed for implementing the Orderly Liquidation Authority (OLA) created in Title II of the Dodd-Frank Act. During an SPOE resolution, most of the failing SIFI’s assets would be transferred to a non-debtor bridge holding company to continue operations, leaving long-term debt and equity behind in the original holding company to be liquidated. (For a previous Roundtable post describing SPOE, click here.) Although both the House and the Senate bills would adapt the Bankruptcy Code to support recapitalization, FIBA differs from the Senate proposals in some important ways.

First, unlike the Senate proposals, FIBA does not repeal the OLA’s regulatory resolution process. FIBA would eliminate some of the major differences between the OLA and the current Bankruptcy Code to make bankruptcy a more viable route for failing SIFIs, but the OLA would remain an option for regulators.

Second, FIBA does not address either private or public financing for the bridge company. The Senate Judiciary Committee’s proposal, on the other hand, explicitly prohibits federal government funding. The bill pending in the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee also prohibits financing by Federal Reserve banks.

At the same time, FIBA and the Senate bills both impose a 48-hour stay on the exercise of contractual rights to terminate, liquidate, and offset qualified financial contracts to allow their transfer to a bridge company. At present, safe harbors in the Bankruptcy Code exempt such contracts from the automatic stay, and even the OLA imposes a stay of only one business day.

The full text of FIBA may be found here.

(This post was authored by Rebecca Green, J.D. ’17.)

The Case in Brief Against Chapter 14
by | posted in: Financial Firms and Safe Harbors | 0

Author: Bruce Grohsgal, Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones, LLP

Grohsgal-BruceResolution of a distressed financial company under Dodd-Frank Title II is a last – but crucial – resort.  Dodd-Frank, Title I, requires each large financial enterprise to file a “living will” that provides for its orderly resolution under the Bankruptcy Code.  Dodd-Frank Title II may only be used to liquidate a failing financial company that would “pose a significant risk to the financial stability of the United States” if resolved in a bankruptcy proceeding or under other federal or state law.  The FDIC must conduct a Title II resolution “in a manner that mitigates such risk and minimizes moral hazard.”  Dodd-Frank also expressly prohibits both a taxpayer-funded bailout and the Federal Reserve’s lending to a failing or failed financial firm.

Dodd-Frank has drawn fire, nonetheless, as encouraging, rather than preventing, bailouts.  Detractors urge repealing Title II of Dodd-Frank and amending the Bankruptcy Code to include a new Chapter 14 in its place.

The proposed Chapter 14’s central flaw is that it does nothing to reconcile Dodd-Frank’s purposes of mitigating systemic risk and minimizing moral hazard with the Bankruptcy Code’s starkly contrasting aims of reorganizing troubled companies, preserving going concerns and maximizing payments to creditors.

This article briefly summarizes Dodd-Frank’s orderly resolution regime and then addresses some of the core proposals for a new Chapter 14.  It concludes that the proposed Chapter 14 will not mitigate systemic risk, minimize moral hazard, or improve on Dodd-Frank’s prohibitions against bailouts, which are the primary purposes of Title II of Dodd-Frank.

The article is available here.

The Chapter 14 Proposal in the Senate
by | posted in: Financial Firms and Safe Harbors | 0

Author: Stephen D. Adams*

[This week the Roundtable looks at the Chapter 14 proposal in the Senate.  This post provides an overview of Chapter 14 as background to Bruce Grohsgal’s thoughtful piece from the ABI Journal available here.]

The Taxpayer Protection and Responsible Resolution Act of 2014 (S. 1861), commonly known as “Chapter 14”, aims to “end ‘too big to fail’ by repealing Dodd-Frank’s Title II” and “replacing it with a bankruptcy process” capable of safely resolving a Systemically Important Financial Institution.

The Chapter 14 proposal envisions a number of changes to the bankruptcy process, grouped into a new bankruptcy chapter (hence “Chapter 14”, a previously unused chapter) that would be available to bank holding companies. Chapter 14 would be run by a special group of financially experienced district judges, could allow for the FDIC to be appointed as trustee, and would have no period of plan exclusivity. In order to effect a quick sale similar to the FDIC’s single point of entry strategy for Title II, the Senate bill would add a two-day stay to bankruptcy’s swap safe harbors to give the trustee a chance to transfer the entire swap portfolio to a new company that is solvent. Repos, however, are treated like secured debt, but with the ability to immediately sell off high quality collateral (though not non-agency Mortgage-Backed Securities).

The Senate Bill draws on work from the Hoover Institution’s Resolution Project that proposed the original Chapter 14 in 2009 and 2010 and updated it recently.

Documents related to the original Chapter 14 proposal work, including proponents’ descriptions of the case for a new Chapter 14, can be found here. The text of S. 1861 can be found here. Professor Thomas Jackson’s Congressional testimony about Chapter 14 in 2014 can be found here.

*Editor, Harvard Law School Bankruptcy Roundtable, and Research Director, Harvard Law School Bankruptcy and Corporate Restructuring Project.