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How Can Special Committees Influence Your Bankruptcy? The appointment of independent directors may benefit a financially distressed business throughout its restructuring process, including during a bankruptcy case. An outside voice can guide a company through the process while fending off claims of conflict of interest by the court. What is an Independent or Non-Executive Director? An independent director can be conceived of as having no direct or indirect connection to the business, including not being an employee, owner, or other insider of the business, and not deriving any income from […]
[Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on LinkedIn on September 20, 2020.] There has been a significant uptick in the number of articles appearing in mainstream media (e.g. newspapers) about the wave of bankruptcies that has already started to appear. One article (linked here), authored by Matt Egan for CNN Business and published about a week ago, caught my particular attention. It is well-written but there were a few things about it that were wrong or, at least, not entirely right. And, so here I am with my thoughts… In […]
How Unique Issues in Healthcare Restructuring Set It Apart from Corporate Restructuring Over the past decade, arguably no industry experienced such dramatic regulatory change or consistent legislative uncertainty as healthcare. Today, continued efforts to repeal, defund, replace, or amend the Affordable Care Act—coupled with rising pharmaceutical costs, increased competition, massive capital investment expenses, etc.—virtually assure a challenging economic environment for healthcare companies for years to come. However, given the stakes involved—and the unfortunate fact that healthcare restructuring provides little time for “on the job training”—practitioners must enter such engagements […]
August 25, 2020 – In an unusual twist to an unusual asset sale process, the Court hearing the Northwest Company cases approved the $31.46mn sale of the Debtors’ assets to Ashford Textiles, LLC and Ashford Partners, LLC (together, “Ashford” or “Purchaser”) [Docket No. 301]. The asset purchase agreement (the “APA”) governing terms of the sale is attached to the order as Exhibit 1. On August 7th, the Debtors named Ashford as the back-up bidder, with Cathay Home, Inc. (“Cathay”) named as the successful bidder, notwithstanding that the Cathay bid was […]
Potential Outcomes of Intercreditor Deeds Secured creditors often seek agreement among themselves in order to limit intercreditor conflict and expedite fulfillment of their respective claims against a borrower in a Chapter 11 case. One might call it a “strength through peace” approach. However, in Chapter 11 cases, some courts have ignored intercreditor agreements in cramdown situations, refused to enforce certain terms as contrary to public policy, and have construed a given intercreditor agreement term as not covering the controversy at issue. We note that the likely fate of an […]
Why You Should Include a Force Majeure Clause in Lease Agreements The Northern District of Illinois delivered a victory last month for a tenant who could not operate its leased space as contemplated at the time it entered into the lease (and as it had been operating up until COVID-19), because continuing to operate normally would have violated an order issued by the Governor of the State of Illinois. The case in which this ruling was issued is In re Hitz Restaurant Group, 20 B 05012 (June 20, […]
Chilled Credit Bidding and the Section 363 Sale Section 363(k) of the Bankruptcy Code (the “Code”) allows a secured creditor to bid at a section 363 sale and use the amount of their claim to offset the purchase price at the sale, called “credit bidding.” A court may limit this right “for cause.” The “for cause” standard is not defined in the Code, and disagreement exists as to what constitutes “for cause.” Traditional bases for limiting credit bidding include challenges related to the lien itself, failure to correctly assert the […]
Section 1111(b) Election: A Countermeasure for Undersecured, Secured Creditors Mathew 5:29 – And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. In a previous article about cram downs, in which a debtor can take steps to confirm a Chapter 11 plan despite rejection from creditors, I referred briefly to an undersecured, secured creditor’s countermeasure: the section 1111(b)(2) election. By […]
The ABCs of ABCs, Business Bankruptcy, & Corporate Restructuring/Insolvency This installment of our series is required reading for the next, which attempts the audacious task of describing a “typical” chapter 11. And if you didn’t get it, the title of this installment, “Chapter 11—If You’ve Seen One, You’ve Seen Them All,” is intended to be sarcastic. That said… The Predictability of Chapter 11 and Likely Outcomes When a company files chapter 11, its experience will bear some resemblance to every chapter 11 that came before. We’re not saying anything momentous […]
The Complexity of Student Loan Debt in Bankruptcy… Demystified Student loan debt has hit a record $1.6 trillion. This number is staggering on its own, but as millions of Americans lose their jobs and source of income during the COVID-19 pandemic, student loan borrowers have to look at their options for repayment. The U.S. government is allowing borrowers to suspend all federal loan principal and interest payments until September 30, 2020, but this still leaves many private loan borrowers at the hands of their lenders. For those experiencing extreme financial […]