[Texas Two-Step and the Future of Mass Tort Bankruptcy Series] Is the Texas Two-Step a Proper Chapter 11 Dance?
by | posted in: Bankruptcy, Bankruptcy Reform, Chapter 11, Corporate Governance, fraudulent transfer, Mass Torts, Texas Two-Step and the Future of Mass Tort Bankruptcy Series, Third-Party Releases | 0

By David Skeel (University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School)

Note: This is the fifth in a series of posts on the Texas Two-Step, the bankruptcy of LTL Management, and the future of mass tort bankruptcies.  Check the HLS Bankruptcy Roundtable throughout the summer for additional contributing posts by academics from institutions across the country.

Earlier posts in this series can be found here (by Jin Lee and Amelia Ricketts), here (by Jonathan C. Lipson), here (by Jared A. Ellias), and here (by Anthony Casey and Joshua Macey).

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David Skeel

Are Texas Two-Steps ever a proper use of Chapter 11?  The argument that they aren’t—a view held by some scholars and reflected in proposed legislation in Washington—isn’t silly. Most current bankruptcy scholars grew up with Thomas Jackson’s creditors’ bargain theory of bankruptcy, which explains bankruptcy as a solution to creditor coordination problems that threaten to jeopardize the going concern value of an otherwise viable firm. The BadCo that files for bankruptcy in a Texas two-step does not have any going concern value. It’s just trying to manage massive liabilities. Why should this be allowed?

In rejecting a challenge to Johnson & Johnson’s recent two-step, the bankruptcy court supplied a forceful rejoinder to the view that preserving going concern value (or otherwise efficiently deploying a distressed company’s assets) is the only proper purpose for Chapter 11. Judge Kaplan points out that bankruptcy is often a superior mechanism for resolving tort liability as compared to the Multidistrict Litigation process or piecemeal litigation outside of bankruptcy. It is more orderly and can give more equitable and consistent treatment to victims. Judge Kaplan’s conclusion that LTL (the BadCo created by the J&J two-step) belongs in bankruptcy, and that a bankruptcy that involves mass tort liabilities but not the ongoing business that caused them is proper, is fully defensible in my view.

Where Judge Kaplan’s opinion goes off the rails is in too cavalierly dismissing the possibility that two-steps will be abused, as when he muses that “open[ing] the floodgates” to two-steps might not be such a bad thing. Those crafting future two-steps will be tempted to leave BadCo with inadequate ability to pay its victims, since nothing in the Texas divisional merger statute prevents this. Bankruptcy supplies two tools for policing these abuses, the good faith requirement [BRT: see this earlier Roundtable post on good faith and Texas Two-Steps] and fraudulent conveyance law. If courts are vigilant, these tools should be sufficient to discourage abusive two-steps. But if courts are cavalier about the potential abuses, the legislation pending in Washington will begin to seem a lot less ill-advised.

Perhaps the best thing that could happen for Texas two-steps would be for courts to bar the use of non-debtor releases outside of the asbestos context, where they are explicitly authorized by section 524(g) of the Bankruptcy Code. The Second Circuit may be poised to take this step in the Purdue Pharma opioid case, if it upholds the District Court’s conclusion that the releases of nondebtors in that case—most notably, the Sackler family—are not authorized by the Bankruptcy Code. If non-debtor releases were disallowed except where explicitly authorized, Texas two-steps would remain viable in asbestos cases such as J&J, but the floodgates would not open in other contexts, since the maneuver only works if the eventual reorganization includes a non-debtor release for GoodCo.

[Texas Two-Step and the Future of Mass Tort Bankruptcy Series] Introduction to LTL Management’s Bankruptcy
by | posted in: Bankruptcy, Bankruptcy Reform, Legislation, Mass Torts, Texas Two-Step and the Future of Mass Tort Bankruptcy Series, Venue | 0

By Jin Lee and Amelia Ricketts (Harvard Law School)

Note: This is the first in a series of posts on the Texas Two Step, the bankruptcy of LTL Management, and the future of mass tort bankruptcies.  Check the HLS Bankruptcy Roundtable throughout the summer for additional contributing posts by academics from institutions across the country.

Jin Lee
Amelia Ricketts

Judge Kaplan’s recent decision not to dismiss the LTL Management (LTL)/Johnson & Johnson (J&J) bankruptcy has further stirred controversy about the hotly debated Texas Two-Step Maneuver, and put an end to speculation on how the bankruptcy court would rule on J&J’s Texas Two-Step bankruptcy filing.  (The decision has been appealed directly to the Third Circuit).

The court rejected tort claimants’ arguments that LTL’s filing violated the good faith requirement for Chapter 11 filings or warranted “for cause” dismissal under Section 1112.  Judge Kaplan held that the filing was an appropriate use of the Bankruptcy Code to maximize value available to creditors, commenting that the bankruptcy court would be the “optimal” venue to resolve tort claimants’ treatment.  The judge emphasized compliance with the terms of the Texas divisional merger statute as evidence of J&J’s good faith.  He also viewed the funding agreement among LTL, J&J, and J&J’s consumer division subsidiary as providing LTL with appropriate capitalization to meet the talc claimants’ needs.  As a result, Judge Kaplan concluded that the talc claimants’ interests would be best served by the bankruptcy process and denied their motion to dismiss.

The full post discussing the case is available here: Introduction to LTL Management’s Bankruptcy.

 

Texas Two-Stepping Out of Bankruptcy
by | posted in: Bankruptcy, Bankruptcy Administration and Jurisdiction, Bankruptcy Reform, Bankruptcy Roundtable Updates, Chapter 11, fraudulent transfer, Jurisprudence, Legislation | 0

By Michael A. Francus (Harvard Law School)

Michael Francus

Johnson & Johnson’s use of the Texas Two-Step to manage its talc liabilities has put the company, and the Two-Step, front and center in the roiling debates over aggressive uses of the bankruptcy system. Those debates have led to scholarly criticism, congressional hearings, and proposed legislation that would curtail debtors’ ability to so use the bankruptcy courts.

My Essay details the mechanics of the Two-Step. Beginning with the Texas divisive merger, the funding agreement, and forum shopping for the Fourth Circuit, the Essay fleshes out precisely how the Two-Step boxes in tort claimants. Like other scholarship, this Essay identifies the risk that such maneuvering effects a fraudulent transfer. It also goes a step further, arguing that the point of the Two-Step is not to succeed, but to delay. Fraudulent-transfer litigation in a bankruptcy consumes time because it requires an adversary proceeding, and that delay pressures tort claimants to settle. So the Two-Step can succeed as long as claimants cannot wait out the course of the bankruptcy, even if a court never declares the particular Two-Step to be a proper use of divisive merger law rather than an improper fraudulent transfer.

Instead of playing into this delay game, this Essay argues, courts should evaluate the Texas Two-Step for good faith. Tort claimants can raise such challenges as a motion to dismiss (as some have) and thus avoid the need for a fraudulent-transfer adversary proceeding. And under current doctrine, the Two-Step likely qualifies as a bad-faith filing: In most cases, the Two-Step is a litigation tactic. And the Two-Step, invariably, is filed by an entity created solely to file for bankruptcy. Both of those are doctrinal hallmarks of bad-faith bankruptcies.

More broadly, the Essay explains, the Two-Step and good-faith challenges to it underscore the continuing role of common law in bankruptcy. The Code does not define good-faith filing, so courts have developed the doctrine case by case. They may yet find an acceptable form of Two-Step, one which yields tort claimants the rights they would receive in, say, a Johnson & Johnson bankruptcy, without hurting Johnson & Johnson’s ability to do business by forcing the whole company into bankruptcy. Along the way, though, a vigilant common-law gatekeeping is warranted, and judges should not hesitate to dismiss Two-Steps thinking that a later ruling on a fraudulent-transfer adversary proceeding can adequately safeguard tort claimants from an improper use of the bankruptcy system.

The full essay will be available at 121 Mich. L. Rev. Online __ (forthcoming 2022) and can be accessed here.

Texas Supreme Court Resolves Good Faith Value Defense Issue For Fifth Circuit
by | posted in: Avoidance | 0

By Michael L. Cook, Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP

The Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act (“UFTA”) (§ 8(a)), like Bankruptcy Code 548(c), provides a complete defense for a “good faith” transferee who gives “reasonably equivalent value” when receiving cash from a fraudulent debtor. Courts have been split as to whether the good faith defense is available to transferees of Ponzi scheme debtors in the fraudulent transfer context. Thus, the Fifth Circuit held an advertising firm in an SEC receiver’s Texas fraudulent transfer suit liable for $5.9 million it had received in good faith from a Ponzi scheme debtor. Janvey v. Golf Channel Inc., 780 F.3d 641, 646-47 (5th Cir. 2015 (advertising services had “no value” to Ponzi scheme creditors although services might be “quite valuable” to creditors of a legitimate business; reversed district court’s holding that defendant “looks more like an innocent trade creditor than a salesman…extending [debtor’s] Ponzi scheme.”)

The Fifth Circuit vacated its decision three months later and certified the question of “what showing of ‘value’ under [the Texas version of the [UFTA]] is sufficient for a transferee to prove…the [good-faith] affirmative defense….” 2016 WL 1268188, at *2. The Texas Supreme Court answered the question on April 1, 2016, after discussing the statutory purpose and reviewing what other federal and state courts have done. According to the court, the UFTA “does not contain separate standards for accessing ‘value’ and ‘reasonably equivalent value’ based on whether the debtor was operating a Ponzi scheme…. Value must be determined objectively at the time of the transfer and in relation to the individual exchange at hand rather than viewed in the context of the debtor’s enterprise.”

The full memo is available here: Texas Supreme Court Resolves Good Faith Defense Issue for Fifth Circuit