Bankruptcy & Restructuring

Generally, once a plan of reorganization is confirmed and substantially consummated, an appellate court will not “unscramble the egg” and grant appellate relief if doing so would harm third parties that relied on the confirmation order.

In our prior post, we discussed the standard a creditor must meet to sue an insolvent corporation for breach of fiduciary duties, as laid out in the Quadrant Structured Products Co., Ltd. v. Vertin decision.

Dan Bleck was quoted in the Modern Healthcare article “Hospitals remain stressed, but don’t blame the ACA” addressing the misconception that the Affordable Care Act is the reigning force pushing healthcare providers into bankruptcy.

A Delaware bankruptcy court held in In re Ferris Properties, Inc. that the debtors could not sell their property free and clear of the secured lender’s mortgages because the lender would not be paid in full from the proceeds of the sale. Specifically, the Court held that the lender could not be compelled to accept a money satisfaction of its interests under section 363(f)(5), and that the lender did not consent to the sale under section 363(f)(2).

The Delaware Court of Chancery recently held that, for a creditor to have standing to bring a derivative breach of fiduciary duty action, the creditor need only establish that the corporation was insolvent at the time the creditor’s action was filed—not that the corporation continued to be insolvent until the date of judgment.

In the recent Third Circuit decision in In re Jevic Holding Corp. the Court of Appeals ruled that, in rare circumstances, settlements in bankruptcy cases can be approved even if they result in junior creditors receiving a distribution before senior creditors are paid in full (i.e., even if the settlement violates the "absolute priority rule").

The Supreme Court has spoken once again on the limited jurisdiction of the bankruptcy courts, adding to the understanding derived from previous cases. Wellness International Network, Ltd., et al. v. Sharif is the Supreme Court’s sixth significant case exploring bankruptcy court jurisdiction under the Bankruptcy Code.