Do Bankruptcy Courts Have Constitutional Authority to Approve Nonconsensual, Third-Party Releases?
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Roundtable Updates, Supreme Court, Third-Party Releases | 0

By Shmuel Vasser and Cara Kaplan (Dechert)

Shmuel Vasser
Cara Kaplan

The Third Circuit, applying the Supreme Court’s decision in Stern v. Marshall, recently held that the Bankruptcy Court has the authority to confirm a chapter 11 plan containing nonconsensual, third-party releases when such releases are integral to the debtor’s successful reorganization.

In Stern, the Supreme Court examined the scope of the bankruptcy court’s constitutional authority and found, among other things, that the bankruptcy court can resolve a matter that is integral to the restructuring of the debtor-creditor relationship.  Analyzing Stern, the Third Circuit in In re Millennium held that the Bankruptcy Court could confirm a plan that included non-consensual, third party releases because the releases were the result of “highly adversarial” and “extremely complicated” negotiations and without the releases, the debtor would not have been able to successfully reorganize.

The full article is available here.

Why Chinese Companies File Chapter 15 Cases in US Bankruptcy Courts
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Administration and Jurisdiction, Bankruptcy Roundtable Updates, International and Comparative | 0

By Sara L. Chenetz and Tina N. Moss (Perkins Coie)

Sara L. Chenetz
Tina N. Moss

Reward Science and Technology Industry Group Co., Ltd. (“Reward”) joins a growing list of Chinese companies that have chosen to file a case in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in connection with their restructuring efforts under the People’s Republic of China’s Enterprise Bankruptcy Law (“EBL”). These U.S. cases are known as “Chapter 15” cases, in which the foreign representative of the debtor files a petition in a U.S. bankruptcy court seeking “recognition” of a foreign proceeding. Relief granted to Reward in its Chapter 15 proceedings included a stay of all efforts by Reward’s U.S. creditors to continue litigation and to commence any new lawsuits or other efforts to collect on claims in the United States. Additionally, the Reward foreign representative was granted the power to administer Reward’s U.S.-based assets for the benefit of its creditors and to gather evidence within the United States concerning Reward’s liabilities, assets, business affairs, and operations, including through examining witnesses under oath and issuing subpoenas to obtain documents.  Reward’s Chapter 15 case demonstrates that companies that are the subject of EBL cases or are considering whether they could benefit from filing an EBL case may also be able to obtain protections from creditor action in the United States by commencing a Chapter 15 case. As part of a Chapter 15 case, U.S. bankruptcy courts may halt litigation and other collection efforts against the Chinese business (temporarily or permanently), limit the enforceability of certain contract provisions, and simultaneously facilitate the Chinese’s business’ efforts to reorganize or liquidate.

The full article is available here.

 

Practice Makes Perfect: Judge Experience and Bankruptcy Outcomes
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Administration and Jurisdiction, Bankruptcy Reform | 0

By Benjamin Charles Iverson (Brigham Young University), Joshua Madsen (University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Carlson School of Management), Wei Wang (Queen’s School of Business), and Qiping Xu (University of Notre Dame, Department of Finance).

Prior studies document the influence of bankruptcy judges’ discretion on restructuring outcomes, yet we know little about how judicial experience affects the bankruptcy process. We study how the accumulation of job-specific human capital influences judges’ efficiency in handling large corporate bankruptcy filings, using 1,310 Chapter 11 filings by large U.S. public firms overseen by 309 unique bankruptcy judges in 75 bankruptcy courts between 1980 and 2012.

Using random assignment of judges to cases for empirical identification, we show that cases assigned to a judge with twice as much time on the bench realize a 5.5% decrease in time spent in reorganization. This reduced time in court translates into savings of approximately $2 million in legal fees alone for a typical case in our sample. Judges’ time on the bench is associated with higher probability of emergence but not higher recidivism. The combined evidence suggests that more experienced judges are overall more efficient. We also find that it takes up to four years for a new judge to become efficient and that judges who see a higher volume of business filings and a greater diversity of cases by size and industry early in their tenure become efficient faster than those who don’t. We find little evidence that judges’ general experience and personal attributes consistently affect case outcomes.

Our analyses highlight a potential benefit of allowing firms to file in courts with more experienced judges. Restricting this flexibility (e.g., through the proposed Bankruptcy Venue Reform Act of 2017) may impose a cost on firms by forcing them to file in courts with less experienced judges.

The full article is available here.

The Roundtable has previously posted on potential Bankruptcy venue reforms, including a summary of the Bankruptcy Venue Reform Act of 2018 introduced by Senators John Cornyn, R-TX, and Elizabeth Warren, D-MA. For a critique of current venue rules—and a possible solution—see Prof. Lynn LoPucki, “Venue Reform Can Save Companies.” For a defense of the current system, see the Roundtable’s summary of the Wall Street Journal’s “Examiners” Panel on venue reform.

Non-Article III Adjudication: Bankruptcy and Nonbankruptcy, With and Without Litigant Consent
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Administration and Jurisdiction | 0

By Ralph Brubaker (University of Illinois College of Law)

This article explores the diverse and intriguing implications of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Wellness International Network, Ltd. v. Sharif, both from an “internal” bankruptcy perspective and as a very important and revealing component of the Court’s still-evolving general jurisprudence of non-Article III adjudications.

In that larger jurisprudence, the contrast between Wellness and the Stern v. Marshall decision prominently highlights a seemingly schizophrenic admixture of formal (Stern) and functional (Wellness) analytical methods. This article maintains, however, that what Stern and Wellness reveal and confirm is a coherent and consistent jurisprudence of non-Article III adjudications with a bifurcated analytical methodology that is a logical corollary of (and that facilitates a complex interaction between) the dual interests protected by Article III, § 1 — both nonwaivable structural separation-of-powers values and the waivable personal right of individual litigants to an Article III adjudication.

In the bankruptcy context, Wellness provides further evidence that the Supreme Court is, over a long run of decisions, simply confirming the constitutional significance of its extensive summary-plenary jurisprudence (taken from established English bankruptcy practice prevailing at the time of the Founding) as the operative constitutional boundary for the adjudicatory powers of non-Article III bankruptcy judges. This article uses the Wellness litigation to demonstrate how that summary-plenary jurisprudence can directly inform the core-noncore distinction drawn by the current jurisdictional statute (which codifies constitutional constraints). The Court’s existing and extensive summary-plenary jurisprudence provides a highly developed analytical framework for resolving even the most nuanced and difficult core-noncore determinations.

The full article is available here.

Through Jevic’s Mirror: Orders, Fees, and Settlements
by | posted in: Cramdown and Priority | 0

By Nicholas L. Georgakopoulos (McKinney School of Law, Indiana University)

This article takes the United States Supreme Court’s simple “no” to nonconsensual structured dismissals in Jevic as an opportunity to study its contours. The first issue is the pending clarification on whether the right to object to a structured dismissal is an individual or a class right. An individual right would leave little space for consensual structured dismissals, whereas a class right would fit with the anti-hold-out scheme of reorganization law. Second, Jevic implies increased scrutiny on first-day orders, especially in liquidating reorganizations, pushing for additional caution and negotiation before early payments. Third is the issue of fees—latent in Jevic but burning in the academy—the tension between race-to-the-bottom and race-to-the-top views of jurisdictional competition with the Court’s silence in the foreground. Fourth is the Court’s approval of settlements (via interim orders) that violate priorities provided they promote a bankruptcy goal, as Iridium’s approval did. Fifth, the juxtaposition of the settlements in Iridium and Jevic stresses the importance of the bankruptcy court’s role in approving settlements when the parties’ incentives are biased.

The full article is available here.

The roundtable has posted previously on Jevic, including a report of the case by Melissa Jacoby & Jonathan Lipson and a roundup of law firm perspectives on the Court’s decision. For opposing views on the case leading up to oral argument, see Melissa Jacoby & Jonathan Lipson on their amicus brief and Bruce Grohsgal making the case for structured dismissals. For other Roundtable posts related to priority, see Casey & Morrison, “Beyond Options”; Baird, “Priority Matters”; and Roe & Tung, “Breaking Bankruptcy Priority,” an article that the Jevic opinion referenced.

Post-Jevic, Expansive Interpretation by Bankruptcy Courts Possible
by | posted in: Cramdown and Priority | 0

By Andrew C. Kassner and Joseph N. Argentina, Jr. (Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP)

In Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corp., 137 S. Ct. 973 (2017), the Supreme Court held that structured dismissals that violate the distribution scheme set forth in the Bankruptcy Code are not permitted.  The Court distinguished such situations from other, somewhat common bankruptcy practices that also violate the Code’s distribution scheme, such as critical vendor orders, employee wage orders, and lender “roll-ups.”  Those practices, the Court noted, “enable a successful reorganization and make even the disfavored creditors better off.”  The question remained, however, how subsequent bankruptcy courts would analyze such practices in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Jevic.

This article summarizes two early post-Jevic decisions and concludes that at least some courts will read the Jevic holding expansively into areas of chapter 11 practice other than structured dismissals.  In In re Fryar, 2017 Bankr. LEXIS 1123 (Apr. 25, 2017), the Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee would not approve a settlement agreement and § 363 sale that provided payment to a lender on account of its prepetition claims.  In In re Pioneer Health Servs., 2017 Bankr. LEXIS 939 (Apr. 4, 2017), the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Mississippi would not permit a hospital debtor to pay three physicians as “critical vendors.”  These courts concluded that Jevic required additional scrutiny of distribution-violating proposals other than structured dismissals.

The full article is available here.

Andrew C. Kassner is the chairman and chief executive officer of Drinker Biddle & Reath, and former chair of its corporate restructuring group. Joseph N. Argentina Jr. is an associate in the firm’s corporate restructuring practice group in the Philadelphia and Wilmington offices. The views expressed in the article are those of Mr. Kassner and Mr. Argentina, and not of Drinker Biddle & Reath.

The roundtable has posted previously on Jevic, including a report of the case by Melissa Jacoby & Jonathan Lipson and a roundup of law firm perspectives on the Court’s decision. For opposing views on the case leading up to oral argument, see Melissa Jacoby & Jonathan Lipson on their amicus brief and Bruce Grohsgal making the case for structured dismissals. For other Roundtable posts related to priority, see Casey & Morrison, “Beyond Options”; Baird, “Priority Matters”; and Roe & Tung, “Breaking Bankruptcy Priority,” an article referred to in the Jevic opinion.

Jevic: Law Firm Perspectives
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Roundtable Updates, Cramdown and Priority | 0

On March 22, the Supreme Court decided Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corp., holding that bankruptcy courts may not approve structured dismissals that provide for distributions that deviate from ordinary priority rules without the affected creditors’ consent. According to the Court, Chapter 11 contemplates three possibilities: (1) a confirmed plan; (2) conversion to Chapter 7; or (3) dismissal. Absent an affirmative indication of congressional intent, the Court was unwilling to endorse a departure from the Code’s priority scheme; thus, it rejected the Third Circuit’s “rare cases” exception allowing courts to disregard priority in structured dismissals for “sufficient reasons.”

Dechert warns the decision could short-circuit “creative solutions to difficult and unique issues” and impose a “real economic cost” on debtors, creditors, and the courts. PretiFlaherty speculates that Jevic might give additional leverage to priority claimholders who know that debtors and secured creditors now “have one less arrow in their quiver.” More generally, Winston & Strawn predicts bankruptcy professionals will “look to Jevic for insight” when developing exit strategies in difficult cases.

Foley & Lardner highlights the Court’s basic commitment to absolute priority, while noting the Court’s careful distinction between final distributions, which must follow absolute priority, and interim distributions, which may break from priority to serve the Code’s ultimate objectives.

DrinkerBiddle emphasizes that Jevic provides “support for employee wage orders, critical vendor orders, and roll-ups,” a “shot in the arm for the sub rosa plan doctrine,” and “fodder for objections to class-skipping gift plans.” Duane Morris agrees, noting that Jevic may be “cited in unexpected ways” in battles about gift plans, critical vendor payments, and the like.

Sheppard Mullin wonders how consent will be determined in structured dismissals and whether features of plan confirmation other than absolute priority — for instance, cramdown, the bests interest test, and bad faith — will be imported into the structured dismissal context as well.

(By David Beylik, Harvard Law School, J.D. 2018.)

The roundtable has posted previously on Jevic, including a report of the case by Melissa Jacoby & Jonathan Lipson. For opposing views on the case leading up to oral argument, see Melissa Jacoby & Jonathan Lipson on their amicus brief and Bruce Grohsgal making the case for structured dismissals. For other Roundtable posts related to priority, see Casey & Morrison, “Beyond Options”; Baird, “Priority Matters”; and Roe & Tung, “Breaking Bankruptcy Priority,” an article that the Jevic opinion referenced.

United States: In GM, Second Circuit Takes a Wrong Turn on Its Treatment of Unknown Claims
by | posted in: 363 Sale | 0

By Debra A. Dandeneau (Baker & McKenzie)

Elliott v. General Motors LLC (In re Motors Liquidation Co.), 829 F.3d 135 (2d Cir. 2016), addresses General Motors’ attempt to sell substantially all of its assets to “New GM” free and clear of certain claims of vehicle owners under the Bankruptcy Code.

“New GM” acquired GM’s assets in a bankruptcy court-approved sale. New GM assumed liability for claims arising from any accidents occurring after the closing date and for any express vehicle warranties. Three classes of vehicle purchasers were not covered:

– prepetition purchasers with prepetition injuries from the “ignition switch defect,”

– prepetition purchasers with economic damages as a result of defects not covered by an express warranty, and

– postpetition purchasers of used GM vehicles who claimed economic damages as a result of defects.

The Second Circuit held that a debtor may sell free and clear of successor liability claims, but independent claims against New GM were not covered by the “free and clear” sale.

The court applied a variation of the “relationship test,” which requires prepetition conduct by the debtor plus some minimum contact or relationship with the claimant, to determine whether the purchasers held “claims.” Both pre-closing accident claims and economic loss claims by prepetition purchasers constituted “claims,” but postpetition purchasers of used vehicles did not have “claims.”

To determine whether the holders of prepetition claims received sufficient notice, the Second Circuit focused on GM’s knowledge of the claims instead of its knowledge of the identity of the creditors.

The full client alert is available here.

Bankruptcy Court Disagrees with Second Circuit’s Holding in Tribune
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Roundtable Updates, Financial Firms and Safe Harbors | 0

By Lee Harrington of Nixon Peabody.

Recently, in In re Physiotherapy Holdings Inc., the Bankruptcy Court in Delaware held that section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code did not preempt various state fraudulent transfer actions because the allegedly fraudulent transfers implicated neither the rationale for that section nor preemption generally. The decision is at odds with recent case law, notably: (i) the Tribune litigation, in which the Second Circuit concluded that state law constructive fraudulent transfer claims involving payments in LBO transactions are prohibited under section 546(e); and (ii) a proceeding in which the Southern District of New York concluded that the interest payment at issue, which did not retire the underlying debt, were not “settlement payments” and was thus outside section 546(e).

Section 546(e) precludes certain bankruptcy avoidance actions involving settlement payments made by or to a financial institution and transfers made by or to a financial institution in connection with a securities contract. It is intended to prevent litigation that might have a destabilizing “ripple effect” on the financial markets and provides a defense to constructive fraudulent transfer actions against shareholders receiving LBO payments.

Physiotherapy found that section 546(e) was not intended to shield “LBO payments to stockholders at the very end of the asset transfer chain, where the stockholders are the ultimate beneficiaries of the constructively fraudulent transfers, and can give the money back . . . with no damage to anyone but themselves” without the attendant destabilizing “ripple effect.”

The full memo is available here.

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The Bankruptcy Roundtable has previously covered treatment of 546(e), most recently in our Tribune Fraudulent Conveyance Litigation Roundup.

Bankruptcy Court Approves Non-Market Cramdown Rate on Momentive Secured Creditors
by | posted in: Valuation | 0

By Adam C. Harris and Karen S. Park of Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP

A recent decision from the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York provides guidance on the “fair and equitable” requirement as it relates to secured creditors in a so-called “cramdown plan.” Section 1129(b) of the Bankruptcy Code provides the means by which a Chapter 11 debtor may obtain confirmation of a plan of reorganization over the objection of a dissenting class of creditors, including secured creditors.  To cram down a plan on a class of secured creditors, the plan must be “fair and equitable” to that class.  One way to meet the “fair and equitable” requirement is to provide that the secured creditors retain their liens and receive deferred cash payments having a present value equal to the allowed amount of their secured claims.

In In re MPM Silcones LLC, 2014 WL 4436335 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. Sept. 9, 2014), the Bankruptcy Court held that the interest rates on secured claims in a “fair and equitable plan” should be derived using a formula that starts with a “risk free” Treasury rate for similar duration instruments, and adds a risk premium generally in the range of 1%-3%.  Importantly, the Bankruptcy Court rejected the objecting secured credtiors’ arguments that the interest rates should be based on the market, i.e., the rates that would be charged to the same debtor entity for a loan having the same terms and duration by a third party lender.

The Bankruptcy Court’s ruling has been appealed.  If upheld, the decision could have far-reaching implications for distressed debt investors as well as on the availability and pricing of capital for borrowers.

Please find a full-length version of the article here.

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