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.

FTI Roundup
by | posted in: Bankruptcy Roundtable Updates, Financial Firms and Safe Harbors | 0

The Seventh Circuit held last July in FTI Consulting, Inc. v. Merit Management Group, LP, 2016 BL 243677 (7th Cir. July 28, 2016), that § 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code is not a safe harbor for “transfers that are simply conducted through financial institutions.” This decision deepens a circuit split on this issue. While the Second, Third, Sixth, Eighth, and Tenth Circuits have held that the plain language of § 546(e) protects transfers through financial institutions as settlement payments, the Seventh Circuit’s interpretation agrees with the Eleventh Circuit’s older decision in In re Munford, 98 F.3d 604, 610 (11th Cir. 1996). The legislative purpose of § 546(e) was to prevent the insolvency of one financial institution from causing systemic harm to the market as a whole. However, its text also has deep implications for leveraged buyouts that might render target corporations insolvent because payments to selling shareholders almost invariably pass through brokers and clearinghouses that are covered by the safe harbor.

Several law firms have now written memos on the FTI decision. Schiff Harden postulates that debtors will be more likely to forum shop when filing for bankruptcy when they have recently undergone a leveraged buyout. Jones Day makes clear that shareholders selling into a leveraged buyout face differing levels of risk depending on which forums the corporation could legally avail itself of in a bankruptcy proceeding. And Dechert argues that FTI Consulting will result in different treatment for parties selling identical securities in leveraged buyouts: financial institutions, stockbrokers, and the like will remain protected by the safe harbor when they are beneficial owners of stock, but other shareholders will be subject to avoidance action.