‘Wither’ the Equity Powers of the Bankruptcy Court
by | posted in: Cramdown and Priority | 0

Author: Mark N. Berman, Nixon Peabody LLP

The United StaMark Bermantes Supreme Court’s Law v. Siegel decision has been explained away as an understandable limitation of a bankruptcy court’s use of Bankruptcy Code Section 105(a)’s expansive authority based on conventional techniques of statutory construction. Bankruptcy courts will not be able to use Section 105(a) to authorize an order that is otherwise prohibited by another section of the Bankruptcy Code.  However, it is also possible to read the decision as yet another stop on the road to limiting the ability of the bankruptcy courts to ‘do equity.’

Revisiting Professor Levitin’s 2006 law review article entitled Toward a Federal Common Law of Bankruptcy: Judicial Lawmaking in a Statutory Regime, 80 Am. Bankr. L.J. 1-87 (2006), I posit that the equity jurisdiction of the bankruptcy courts has already been statutorily restricted and the United States Supreme Court has made it clear that everyone should be prepared for further limitation of what has historically been its power. The Supreme Court’s warning is repeated in this latest decision.

The full alert is available here.

[Editor: The full text of Professor Adam Levitin’s noted article, Toward a Federal Common Law of Bankruptcy: Judicial Lawmaking in a Statutory Regime, can be found here.]

The Evolution of European Insolvency Law Part 2: The EU Commission’s Proposal for the Amendment of the European Insolvency Regulation
by | posted in: International and Comparative | 0

Author: Dr. Björn Laukemann, Maître en droit (Aix-en-Provence), Senior Research Fellow at the Max Plack Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law

Laukemann PicFollowing the external evaluation (Part 1), the EU Commission released a proposal for the amendment of the European Insolvency Regulation in December 2012, aimed at enhancing the efficiency of cross border insolvency proceedings and thus ensuring a proper “functioning of the internal market and its resilience in economic crises”. The following main changes were proposed:

  1. The Regulation’s scope of application now includes hybrid proceedings (“debtor in possession”), pre-insolvency proceedings and debt discharge proceedings for natural persons. The Commission will scrutinize whether specific national proceedings fall within the revised scope.
  2. Retaining the jurisdictional criterion of the debtor’s centre of main interests, the proposal clarifies the criteria and improves the procedural framework for determining the competent court (examination ex officio, information of foreign creditors and creditors’ right to judicial review).
  3. The proposal empowers the court to refuse to open secondary proceedings (i.e. parallel territorial proceedings opened in the Member State of the debtor’s establishment) if they are unnecessary to protect the interests of local creditors, and thus to reduce detrimental effects on rescue efforts (abolishment of the winding-up-requirement; improved cooperation and communication between main and secondary proceedings, also on a court-to-court basis).
  4. Member States are required to establish publicly accessible and interconnected electronic registers in which the relevant court decisions are published.
  5. The implementation of standard forms will facilitate the lodging of claims for foreign creditors.
  6. A framework for the coordination of insolvency proceedings within groups of companies is set up (obligation of courts and liquidators to cooperate and communicate with each other; extending certain rights of administrators to proceedings of other group members, e.g. the right to be heard, to participate, to request a stay of proceedings and to propose a rescue plan).

Part 3 will address the reactions of the European Parliament and the Council and comment on ongoing and future developments.

 

Get in Line: Chapter 11 Restructuring in Crowded Bankruptcy Courts
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Administration and Jurisdiction | 0

By Benjamin Iverson, Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University

On average, total bankruptcy filings rise by 32% during economic recessions, leaving bankruptcy judges with far less time per case exactly when financial distress is worst.  The inflexible nature of the bankruptcy system coupled with the varying demands placed upon it, leads to the concern that time constraints might limit the effectiveness of bankruptcy when economic conditions deteriorate.

In my paper, “Get in Line: Chapter 11 Restructuring in Crowded Bankruptcy Courts,” I test whether Chapter 11 restructuring outcomes are affected by time constraints in busy bankruptcy courts.  Using the passage of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act in 2005 as a shock that decreased caseloads dramatically, I show that as bankruptcy judges become busier they tend to allow more firms to reorganize and liquidate fewer firms.  I interpret this as evidence that busy bankruptcy judges defer to the debtor in possession more often, scrutinizing each case less and thereby allowing reorganization more often.  In addition, I find that firms that reorganize in busy courts tend to spend longer in bankruptcy, while firms that are dismissed from busy courts are more likely to re-file for bankruptcy within three years of their original filing.

Perhaps most striking, I also show that busy courts impose costs on local banks, which report higher charge-offs on business lending when caseload increases.  If time constraints create higher costs of financial distress, it appears that these costs are typically passed on to the creditors of the bankrupt firms in the form of higher losses on distressed loans.

The full-length article can be found here.

 

Another Court of Appeals Broadly Reads Settlement Payment Safe Harbor
by | posted in: Financial Firms and Safe Harbors | 0

By Michael L. Cook, Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP

The Courts of Appeals, with few exceptions, have broadly read the safe harbor defense contained in Bankruptcy Code §546(e) over the past 24 years.  It insulates a “settlement payment” or “margin payment” on a “securities contract,” “commodity contract” or “forward contract” from a trustee’s fraudulent transfer or preference claims unless the debtor makes the payment with “actual intent to hinder, delay or defraud creditors.”  Despite policy arguments by lower courts, trustees, creditors and commentators, the appellate courts have claimed to rely on the Code’s “plain language” to deny recovery.  In this Article, we discuss a recent Seventh Circuit decision that (a) reversed a district court’s “policy” decision purporting to divine Congress’s intent as to the proper application of the safe harbor provision; (b) rejected decisions by the Fifth and Ninth Circuits that refused to apply the safe harbor in the context of a Ponzi scheme; and (c) followed recent decisions of the Second and Fourth Circuits.

We discuss the Seventh Circuit’s close reading and application of the statutory language, “clearly and predictably using well established principles of statutory construction.”  Citing Supreme Court precedent, the court refused to rely on legislative history that was “neither passed by a majority of either House nor signed into law.”  Instead, the court explained why the safe harbor in the case before it yielded a sensible result, avoiding instability and uncertainty in the securities business.

We also review recent conflicting decisions in the lower courts that have resulted from imaginative attempts by lawyers to avoid application of the safe harbor defense.  Finally, we discuss another case pending in the Second Circuit that pushes the safe harbor defense to its outer limits.  That case asks (a) whether an intermediary is required in a safe harbor case, and (b) whether the defendant must show an adverse effect on financial markets.

Schulte Roth & Zabel Client Alert, April 3, 2014:  http://www.srz.com/Seventh_Circuit_Reads_Bankruptcy_Safe_Harbor_Broadly_to_Insulate_Preferential_Settlement_Payment_to_Commodity_Broker/

Bankruptcy Law as a Liquidity Provider
by | posted in: Claims Trading | 0

Authors: Kenneth Ayotte & David Skeel

Since the outset of the recent financial crisis, liquidity problems have been cited as the cause behind the bankruptcies and near bankruptcies of numerous firms, ranging from Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers in 2008 to Kodak more recently.  As Kodak’s lead bankruptcy lawyer explained to the court on the first day of the case: “We’re here for liquidity.” In this Article, we offer the first theoretical analysis of bankruptcy’s crucial role in creating liquidity for firms in financial distress.

The dominant normative theory of bankruptcy (the “Creditors Bargain theory”) argues that bankruptcy should be limited to solving coordination problems caused by multiple creditors. Using simple numerical illustrations, we show that two well-known problems that cause illiquidity–debt overhang and adverse selection– are more severe in the presence of multiple, uncoordinated creditors.  Hence, bankruptcy is justified in addressing them.

We discuss the Bankruptcy Code’s existing liquidity-providing rules, such as the ability to issue new senior claims, and the ability to sell assets free and clear of liens and other claims.  In addition to identifying this function in a variety of provisions that have not previously been recognized as related, our theory also explains how the recent trend toward creditor control in Chapter 11 cases can be explained as an attempt to create illiquidity for strategic advantage.  Although bankruptcy’s liquidity providing rules are essential, especially in the current environment, they also carry costs, such as the risk of “continuation bias.”  To address these costs, we propose qualitative principles for striking the balance between debtor liquidity and respect for nonbankruptcy rights.

University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 80, Fall 2013.  A draft is available on SSRN.

Activist Investors, Distressed Companies, and Value Uncertainty
by | posted in: Claims Trading | 0

Authors:  Michelle M. Harner, Jamie Marincic Griffin, and Jennifer Ivey-Crickenberger

Hedge funds and other private investment funds often play a key role in chapter 11 cases.  They may hold the debtor’s prepetition secured debt or provide postpetition financing to the debtor.  They also may buy and trade the debtor’s secured and unsecured debt both before and after a chapter 11 filing.  These activities can provide much-needed liquidity to a debtor and foster a robust secondary market for creditors looking to exit the credit.  A fund’s participation in a case, however, sometimes generates litigation and, arguably, both delays the resolution and increases the cost of the case.  Consequently, many commentators and practitioners debate the utility of funds in restructurings.

In our most recent article on funds in chapter 11, we conduct an original empirical study of funds as purchasers of chapter 11 debtors.  Specifically, the study analyzes cases where a fund (individually or as part of a group) acquires control of a debtor through the chapter 11 process by purchasing either substantially all of the debtor’s assets or a majority interest in the reorganized stock.  In the stock acquisition context, we were concerned only with the investment of new capital.

Overall, the data suggest that funds have the potential to provide value in chapter 11.  But neither the participation of funds nor the chapter 11 process itself is a panacea, and more empirical and traditional case studies are needed to understand fully the impact of funds on corporate restructurings.  We hope our study encourages further research.

The full-length article can be found here.

“Trade Away!”—Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York Decides That Original Issue Discount From Fair Value Exchanges Is Allowable in Bankruptcy
by | posted in: Claims Trading | 0

Authors: Richard L. Wynne and Lance Miller, Jones Day

Debt exchanges have long been utilized by distressed companies to address liquidity concerns and to take advantage of beneficial market conditions.  A company with burdensome debt obligations might seek to exchange existing notes for new notes with the same outstanding principal but with borrower-favorable terms (a “Face Value Exchange”).   Alternatively, the company could attempt to exchange existing notes for new notes with a lower face amount (a “Fair Value Exchange”).  Under either scenario, a debt exchange will create “original issue discount” (“OID”) equal to the difference between the face amount of the new notes and the value generated by the exchange for the company (i.e., the fair market value of the old notes).  For tax and accounting purposes, OID is treated as interest that is amortized over the life of the note, with the face amount scheduled to be paid on maturity.

When a company files for bankruptcy, however, unaccrued OID should arguably be disallowed under section 502(b)(2) of the Bankruptcy Code as “unmatured interest.”  However, to encourage out-of-court restructurings, both the Second and Fifth Circuit Courts of Appeal have ruled that unaccrued OID from Face Value Exchanges should not be disallowed.  In In re Residential Capital , LLC, 501 B.R. 549 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. 2013), the court expanded that rationale to apply to Fair Value Exchanges.  If interpreted broadly and adopted by other courts, the decision will bring certainty to the markets that OID resulting from a debt-for-debt exchange will be allowed in bankruptcy, regardless of how the exchange is structured.

A more detailed discussion of the ruling is available here.

 

Essential Corporate Bankruptcy Law
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Administration and Jurisdiction | 0

Authors:  Oscar Couwenberg & Stephen J. Lubben

In every economy, the question of what to do with financially distressed businesses is a matter of concern.   The United States has a long history of corporate restructuring law, starting with the reorganization of railroads in the nineteenth century and continuing through chapter 11 in its current form.   This naturally leads to a tendency to adopt chapter 11, or something like it.

But why?  In particular, chapter 11 is a rather ornate system of corporate reorganization, and it has been adorned with elements that reflect little more than particular creditors’ ability to lobby Congress.

We reexamine chapter 11 to understand its core.  In short, what, if any, are the essential elements of corporate bankruptcy law?

We point to two facets of chapter 11:  asset stabilization and asset separation.  These two aspects of chapter 11 could not be established other than by statute, and jurisdictions looking to reform their corporate bankruptcy processes should focus there.

Asset stabilization is the ability to temporarily protect assets as a coherent whole.  It includes obvious things like the stay on individual creditor collection, provision of post-bankruptcy liquidity and delays on termination of contracts with the debtor.

Asset separation captures the ability to separate assets from their concomitant liabilities.  This might take the form of a discharge, but is not necessary.  Essential is that the system provides clean title to a new owner of the assets, which may or may not be the post-bankruptcy firm.

As this is the core of any sensible corporate insolvency system, features beyond that are a matter of policy, and politics.

The full article can be found here.

Recent Lessons on Management Compensation at Various States of the Chapter 11
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Administration and Jurisdiction | 0

By James H. M. Sprayregen, Christopher T. Greco, and Neal Paul Donnelly, Kirkland & Ellis

Setting compensation for senior management can be among the most contentious issues facing companies reorganizing under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code. Corporate debtors argue that such compensation—often in the form of base salary, bonuses, or stock of the reorganized company—helps retain and incentivize management, whose services are believed necessary to achieve a successful reorganization. Creditors, by contrast, may be loath to support compensation packages that they perceive as enriching the very managers who led the company into bankruptcy.

This tension over management compensation, though long present in corporate bankruptcy cases, has been more pronounced since 2005, when the US Congress added Section 503(c) to the Bankruptcy Code. Section 503(c) limits bankrupt companies’ freedom to give management retention bonuses, severance payments, or other ancillary compensation. For instance, under the current regime, a company cannot pay managers retention bonuses unless it proves to a bankruptcy court that the managers both provide essential services to the reorganizing business and that they have alternative job offers in hand. Even then, the Bankruptcy Code caps the amount of the retention bonuses. Severance payments to managers are similarly restricted by Section 503(c).…Read more here.

[This article first appeared in the March 2013 issue of Financier Worldwide magazine. Copyright Financier Worldwide 2014 all rights reserved. Reprinted with publishers permission. www.financierworldwide.com]

The Evolution of European Insolvency Law: Part 1: The Heidelberg/Luxembourg/Vienna Report
by | posted in: International and Comparative | 0

Authors: Prof. Burkhard Hess (Luxembourg/Heidelberg), Univ.-Prof. Paul Oberhammer (Vienna/London/St. Gallen) and Prof. Thomas Pfeiffer (Heidelberg), summarized by team member Robert Arts

The first step towards the upcoming amendment of the European Insolvency Regulation was an evaluation of its application since its adoption in 2002. The Regulation itself required the evaluation to make sure that European Insolvency Law keeps up with the constant changes to the multitude of national insolvency regimes. A team from the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg (Hess), Heidelberg University (Pfeiffer), and the University of Vienna (Oberhammer) conducted the research and collected empirical data in all 26 concerned Member States.

The evaluation shows that the defining principle of the Regulation, that of universality (single proceeding and single insolvency statute with universal effect and recognition) has proven to be a great boon for the procedural handling of cross-border insolvencies in Europe. The report consequently proposes to further strengthen universality by reducing the possibility of separate, territorial proceedings.

Moreover, the report finds that widening the scope of application (by inclusion of pre-, hybrid and annex proceedings and by providing – for the first time ever – a framework for collaboration within group of company insolvencies), is necessary to keep the Regulation in line with the ongoing shift from liquidation towards the reorganization of companies.

The report also addresses technical difficulties arising from cross border insolvencies – e.g., the lodging of claims, the need for communication amongst judges and administrators and the information deficit of foreign creditors.

The entire report can be found here. Part 2 will cover the proposal for the amendment of the Regulation by the European Commission, which adopted many of the report’s suggestions.

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