Bankruptcy’s Role in the COVID-19 Crisis
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Administration and Jurisdiction, Bankruptcy Roundtable Updates | 0

By Edward R. Morrison and Andrea C. Saavedra (Columbia Law School)

Edward R. Morrison
Andrea C. Saavedra

Current COVID-19 policies treat bankruptcy law as a last resort for stressed businesses and consumers. We think that’s a sensible approach for small businesses and consumers, but not for large corporations. What many small businesses and consumers need now is quick access to liquidity and other forms of forbearance or debt forgiveness, not the debt-discharge of bankruptcy. Even for those who need a debt-discharge, it makes sense to offer them liquidity now and thereby ease the burden on our bankruptcy system, which could be overwhelmed by a flood of filings. In our view, it’s better to stabilize households and small businesses immediately and worry about restructuring their balance sheets after the crisis ends.

For large corporations, however, bankruptcy should be a front-line policy tool. Many were financially fragile before the current crisis, due to high leverage or operational problems. For them, government-backed financing should be provided during a bankruptcy process that cures these problems and forces investors, not taxpayers, to bear the costs of cure. Government action should save businesses (and jobs), not investors. This is a crisis-tested policy response, as we saw in the 2008 Financial Crisis: Both Chrysler and General Motors received government-backed financing during their bankruptcy cases. To be sure, an increase in filings by large corporations would burden our bankruptcy courts but our courts, and the professional bar and consultant industry that supports them, are well prepared to assist these corporations (and fairly represent and protect all parties’ interests), as they have done in past crises.

The full article is available here, and a more detailed summary can be accessed here.

COVID-19 Impacts on Landlords of Retail Debtors
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Administration and Jurisdiction, Bankruptcy Roundtable Updates | 0

By Scott K. Charles, Amy R. Wolf, Michael H. Cassel (Wachtell)

Scott K. Charles
Amy R. Wolf
Michael H. Cassel

This memorandum addresses one of the impacts of COVID-19 on retail bankruptcies. Several retailers in chapter 11 have sought to suspend their cases given the inability to operate or conduct going out of business sales during the pandemic. Courts in some cases have granted requests for extraordinary relief, which have included excusing the payment of rent notwithstanding the requirements of the Bankruptcy Code that nonresidential leases of real property be paid on a current basis.

The full article is available here.

Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act Expands the Scope of the Small Business Reorganization Act
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Administration and Jurisdiction, Bankruptcy Reform, Bankruptcy Roundtable Updates | 0

By Jessica Ljustina (Harvard Law School)

Jessica Ljustina

Congress passed the Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019 (“SBRA”) to streamline and reduce the cost of bankruptcy for small businesses; it went into effect on February 19, 2020.

As originally enacted, the Act allowed certain small businesses with no more than approximately $2.7 million of debt to file for bankruptcy under a new subchapter V of chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code.

The recently enacted Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (“CARES”) Act has temporarily increased the debt limit to $7.5 million for cases commenced in the next year. That may greatly expand the SBRA’s scope, as Professor Robert Lawless has estimated that over 50% of businesses that filed under chapter 11 between 2013 and 2017 had debt below $7.5 million.

The full article is available here.

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.

Inequitable Subordination: Distressing Distressed Claims Purchasers by Propagating Subordination Benefit Elimination Theory
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Administration and Jurisdiction, Bankruptcy Roundtable Updates, Claims Trading, Jurisprudence | 0

By Jay Rao (University of California, Berkeley, School of Law)

Jay Rao

This Article examines the application of equitable subordination under Title 11 of the United States Code to bankruptcy claims purchasing transactions that transpire after the occurrence of inequitable conduct by a third party. Although a significant issue with practical consequences, it has drawn relatively scant commentary. To the author’s knowledge, no scholarship to date has attempted to comprehensively discuss the issue or describe the indirect cleansing and washing of tainted claims resulting therefrom. While analyzing and criticizing the current state of the law, this Article introduces the concepts of the “subordination benefit,” “subordination benefit elimination theory,” and “limited subordination benefit theory” to facilitate and further conversations related to the intersection of equitable subordination and bankruptcy claims trading.

This Article primarily aims to promote an active, fluid bankruptcy claims trading market to, on an ex post basis, benefit creditors and, on an ex ante basis, reduce the cost, and induce the extension, of credit in the primary capital markets, thereby supporting the broader economy. Additionally, this Article seeks to reduce indirect cleansing of tainted claims and indirect claims washing through the bankruptcy claims market.

The subject matter is particularly timely and relevant, given the recent publication of the Final Report and Recommendations of the American Bankruptcy Institute Commission to Study the Reform of Chapter 11, the significant growth of the claims trading market and increasing activity and sophistication of distressed investors, and the recent formation of the American Bankruptcy Institute’s Claims Trading Committee.

This Article argues that subordination benefit elimination theory, which represents the dominant theory propagated by courts and commentators, finds support in a misguided reading of caselaw and conflicts with sound economic policy and logic. Further, while acknowledging limited subordination benefit theory is a superior approach to subordination benefit elimination theory, this Article argues that limited subordination benefit theory also runs contrary to sound economic policy and logic. This Article requests commentators and courts halt and reverse the propagation of subordination benefit elimination theory and avoid disseminating limited subordination benefit theory. Instead, this Article proposes post-misconduct discounted claims purchasers be entitled to participate in the subordination benefit to the same extent as pre-misconduct claimholders.

If commentators and courts are unready to abandon both theories and if required to make a suboptimal binary choice, this Article suggests limited subordination benefit theory be propagated and utilized in lieu of subordination benefit elimination theory.

The full article is available here.

Chapter 11 Plan Distributions Are Not Collateral Covered by Intercreditor Agreement’s Waterfall Provision
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Administration and Jurisdiction, Bankruptcy Roundtable Updates, Priority | 0

By Brad B. Erens and Mark G. Douglas (Jones Day)

Brad Erens
Brad Erens
Mark G. Douglas

In In re Energy Future Holdings Corp., 773 Fed. Appx. 89, 2019 WL 2535700 (3d Cir. June 19, 2019), a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that adequate protection payments made during a bankruptcy case and distributions under a chapter 11 plan are not distributions of collateral for purposes of a “waterfall” provision in an intercreditor agreement. The ruling is a reminder that intercreditor agreements will apply only in accordance with their terms.Although the parties could have drafted the intercreditor agreement to apply to any consideration received from the debtor by the noteholders, they did not. Therefore, the intercreditor agreement did not apply to the adequate protection payments and plan distributions made to the noteholders.Creditors have recently learned similar lessons in other cases. Because the ruling was unpublished, the decision is not binding on courts in the Third Circuit.

The full article is available here.

Same Class, Different Recoveries — No Bar to Plan Confirmation
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Administration and Jurisdiction, Bankruptcy Roundtable Updates, Workouts and Pre-Packs | 0

By Francis J. Lawall and John Henry Schanne II (Pepper Hamilton LLP)

In Ad Hoc Committee of Non-Consenting Creditors v. Peabody Energy Corp., (In re Peabody Energy Corp.), 933 F.3d 918 (8th Cir. 2019), the Eighth Circuit held that a debtors’ Chapter 11 plan complied with Bankruptcy Code Section 1123(a)(4) (which mandates that a plan provide the same treatment to all members of a particular class), despite providing more favorable treatment to creditors that agreed to backstop a rights offering by paying the participating creditors significant premiums and allowing them to purchase preferred stock at a deep discount.

The Eighth Circuit’s decision in Peabody joins decisions from the Second, Fifth and Ninth circuits in ruling that a plan may treat one set of claim holders within a single class more favorably than another so long as the treatment is not for the claim but for distinct, legitimate rights or contributions from the favored group separate from the claim. As bankruptcy cases continue to grow in size and complexity, creative approaches such as that employed in Peabody are certain to be utilized in efforts to salvage businesses in troubled industries.

The article may be found at Law.com: the original publication.

Bankruptcy’s Cathedral: Property Rules, Liability Rules, and Distress
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Reform, Bankruptcy Roundtable Updates, Jurisprudence, Legislation | 0

By Vincent S.J. Buccola (University of Pennsylvania – The Wharton School)

What good can a corporate bankruptcy regime do in the modern economy? The question bears asking because the environment in which distressed companies find themselves is so markedly different from the environment of just twenty years ago—to say nothing of the days of the equity receiverships, of sections 77 and 77B, of Chapters X and XI. The most important changes are well known: increased depth and liquidity of financial markets and, especially, increased capacity of financial contracting to say ex ante how distress will be resolved ex post. Recent efforts to take stock of contemporary bankruptcy practice, most notably the ABI’s Chapter 11 reform project, grapple implicitly with the significance of a changing environment. But by leaving the matter implicit, they underscore a lacuna about what the law’s marginal contribution to the economic order might be.

In a forthcoming article, Bankruptcy’s Cathedral, I hazard a general answer and elaborate its implications for a few prominent uses of bankruptcy in today’s practice.

The characteristic function of bankruptcy law, I say, is to recharacterize the mode in which an investor’s relationship to a distressed firm is governed. In particular, bankruptcy frequently toggles the protection of an investor’s economic interests from a property rule, in the Calabresi and Melamed sense, to a liability rule. It swaps out the investor’s unilateral right upon default to withdraw her investment, when such a right would ordinarily prevail, in favor of a judicially mediated procedure designed to give her the official value of her right. The automatic stay furnishes an example. It extinguishes a secured creditor’s power to repossess and sell collateral, and supplies instead a right only to what the bankruptcy judge determines to be “adequate protection” of its interest in the collateral.

This toggling function can be useful, Property rules are often more efficient during a company’s financial health than during distress. A state-contingent meta rule that switches between the two thus might be optimal. But what about financial contracting? Why can’t investors stipulate state-contingent meta rules if indeed they can maximize surplus by doing so? The short answer is that in some cases contract is sufficient, but in other cases legal or practical impediments are insuperable. The marginal contribution of bankruptcy law, then, is to supply toggling rules where investors cannot practically do so on their own.

One implication of my approach is to index the justifiable scope of bankruptcy to contingent facts about the efficacy of financial contracting. In environments where it is difficult for investors to specify state-contingent toggling rules, whether because of legal prohibition or practical impossibility, the compass for bankruptcy law is wider. As contract becomes more efficacious, bankruptcy’s brief grows correspondingly shorter.

This normative schema can be used to assess one-by-one the many actual interventions of bankruptcy laws. I scrutinize three uses of bankruptcy that are important in today’s practice: to confirm prepackaged plans, to effect going-concern sales, and to take advantage of the automatic stay. I find plausible justifications for a legal institution to bind holdout creditors and to extinguish in rem claims against a debtor’s assets. The automatic stay, on the other hand, is harder to justify. (The curious must read within to find out why.) More generally, though, my approach shows how one can weigh the contributions of a bankruptcy regime against its redundant or even counterproductive in light of contracting innovations.

The complete article is available for download here.

Bankruptcy Sales: Is A Public Auction Required to Assure That Property Is Sold for The Highest and Best Price?
by | posted in: 363 Sale, Bankruptcy Roundtable Updates, Fiduciary Duties, Valuation | 0

By Vicki R. Harding (Vicki R. Harding, PLLC)

A buyer negotiating acquisition of commercial real estate from a Chapter 7 trustee or a Chapter 11 debtor-in-possession will almost always hear the mantra: “I have a fiduciary duty to maximize value for the benefit of the bankruptcy estate” – which the seller insists means the property must be sold through a public auction. The potential buyer may be designated as the stalking horse (e.g. its offer will be treated as an opening bid), and it may have input on the bidding procedures (bidder qualifications, minimum overbid, purchase price payment terms, etc.). But at the end of the day it runs a risk that after investing time and money in pursuing the acquisition someone else may be selected as having made a “higher and better” offer.

However, that is not always the case.  In re 160 Royal Palm, LLC, 600 B.R. 119 (S.D. Fla. 2019) presents an interesting case study. As discussed in Bankruptcy Sales: Highest Is Not Always Best, the bankruptcy court allowed a debtor to withdraw property from a previously authorized public auction and to proceed with a private sale to a designated buyer, subject only to an overbid by the stalking horse from the public auction. The court approved the private sale over the objection of a third party that claimed that in a public auction it would bid at least $1 million more than the private sale purchase price.

The full article is available here.

What’s Wrong with Chapter 11?
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Administration and Jurisdiction, Bankruptcy Reform, Bankruptcy Roundtable Updates | 0

By Charles J. Tabb (University of Illinois College of Law)

The time has come to cast a discerning eye at chapter 11, the United States corporate bankruptcy reorganization statute, and examine how it is currently broken and what fixes can be made to improve it.

This Article first identifies five core normative goals that chapter 11 should promote: (1) maximize the value of the debtor firm; (2) distribute the maximized value of the firm fairly and equitably; (3) save jobs; (4) minimize the ripple effect of the firm’s failure; and (5) ensure that in pursuing those normative goals, the cure is not worse than the disease.

The Article then examines five critical ways in which chapter 11 in practice fails to achieve the normative ideals: (1) traditional chapter 11 restructurings are largely a thing of the past, and have given way to quick all-asset sales of the company; (2) secured lenders control everything and get a disproportionate share of the firm’s value; (3) a small number of other creditors are able to apply leverage to obtain unfair and inequitable payments on their claims compared to other creditors; (4) venue forum shopping has triggered a race to the bottom; and (5) bankruptcy judges routinely ignore the statute as written and legislate judicially.

The Article concludes by identifying seven possible reforms that could help transform chapter 11 from the current nightmare to the normative ideal dream: (1) making sales once again just sales; (2) resurrecting the “perishability” or “emergency” test for sales; (3) limiting secured creditors to foreclosure value; (4) opening up DIP financing terms and eliminating draconian terms; (5) eliminating all preferential priority-altering payments; (6) curtailing venue choice and forum shopping; and (7) eradicating judicial legislation.

The full article is available here.

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