Like a professional fee carve-out, secured creditors may also agree to a carve-out for unsecured creditors to appease the court and creditors’ committee.

A Series on the ABCs of ABCs, Business Bankruptcy & Corporate Restructuring/Insolvency Since a judge presides over a chapter 11 proceeding, one might assume that a chapter 11 case is like any other commercial litigation matter, with one party on each side of the case: a plaintiff and a defendant. One would be wrong (Felix Unger taught us what happens when we “ass-u-me”). In this installment of our series on business bankruptcy, restructuring and insolvency, we look at debtors, chapter 11 trustees, types of creditors and other parties involved in […]

In the realm of lending, the perfected Uniform Commercial Code-1 (“UCC-1”) is the hallmark of security.  If a secured asset has value, and the liens are valid, what other issues are there to consider?  Well, in at least one instance, underlying intercompany notes were the issue.  And because of the nature of these notes, the perfected UCC-1 lost its shine. In a bankruptcy case filed in the 5th District, the U.S. Debtor parent company had a number of lending agreements with different banks.  Subsidiaries of the parent company, including foreign […]

A written tour of business bankruptcy and its alternatives. If you would like to read from the beginning, this series started here with a broad overview of business bankruptcy. Most recently, the series has focused on the automatic stay, where you can find the 30,000-foot view. Or you can find more specific treatment here. In this installment, we give a crash course from a particular perspective – the unsecured creditor. When a debtor files for bankruptcy, creditors hold different types of claims or interests against the debtor’s estate.  Generally, these claims […]

A written tour of business bankruptcy and its alternatives A typical commercial litigation case involves a judge, a plaintiff, and a defendant. A typical commercial bankruptcy case also has a judge, but that’s about where the similarities stop. A typical commercial litigation case, you see, is a two-party dispute. A typical commercial bankruptcy case is anything but. Who are the parties? The company that files the bankruptcy is the debtor (once a chapter 11 petition is filed, the debtor is called the debtor-in-possession). And, a debtor can have any number of creditors, each […]

JPMorgan Chase & Co. and others (“JPM”) lent $1.5 billion to General Motors Corporation (“Old GM”) under a term loan agreement (the “Term Loan Agreement”).  JPM was the senior secured creditor of Old GM.  Old Gm went into chapter 11 bankruptcy.  Under the terms of the DIP financing approved by the bankruptcy court, proceeds of the DIP loan were used to pay $1.5 billion to JPM for its claims under the Term Loan Agreement.  The unsecured creditors committee formed in the Old GM chapter 11 case (the “Committee”) wants that […]

In part one of our series on recharacterization, we discussed the elements of judicial recharacterization of loans as equity interests.[i]  In part two of the series, we considered how debtors can “claw back” putative “loans” that they may have repaid years earlier because the “loans” were in fact equity investments and their repayment was invalid.[ii]  In this finale of the series, we contrast recharacterization with equitable subordination, which is another means by which some creditors can seek to push ahead of others. Equitable subordination resembles recharacterization in that it permits […]

In our last article[i], we discussed the judicial recharacterization of loans as equity interests.  As we described, a court will recharacterize a lender’s debt claim as equity if it determines the “loan” actually was intended to be, and was treated by the parties as, an equity investment.  Recharacterization is a powerful tool for creditors and trustees because, under the Bankruptcy Code’s priority scheme, debt claims (and all general unsecured claims) must be repaid in full before equityholders can receive any distribution on account of their (equity) interests.  Because many, if […]