A written tour of business bankruptcy and its alternatives In order to understand the options a financially distressed business (or its owners, creditors, or potential buyers) has, one has to understand the Bankruptcy Code. The Bankruptcy Code is contained in Title 11 of the U.S. Code and is divided into chapters. Chapters 1, 3 and 5 are “general” chapters, applicable in all cases: Chapter 1 contains definitions, defines who can be a debtor, describes the courts’ powers, and contains some other general rules. Chapter 3 governs “case administration,” which sounds […]

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 […]

A written tour of business bankruptcy and its alternatives You manage a private equity or hedge fund. Or maybe you work for a family office. Or maybe you’re the CEO or CFO of a business that has a competitor that is failing and you are considering trying to buy it on the cheap. Or perhaps you are the general counsel of a company that does business with a company that just filed for bankruptcy or that is being sued for a preference. Or maybe you are a business owner considering […]

If you have not done so already, you’ll want to read Part 1 and Part 2 of this series first, before delving into this final Part 3. So, now that we know that this “shale revolution” has at least been a short-term game changer, it’s time to get into some more specifics of how unconventional oil sources should impact our long-term perspective. On that point, let’s first turn to Mathilde Mathieu, Oliver Sartor, and Thomas Spencer, research analysts at the think tank Vox CEPR’s Policy Portal, whose recent article “Economic analysis of the US unconventional oil […]

If you have not yet read Part 1 of this series, you’ll want to go back and do so before tackling this Part 2. And if you’ve read Part 1, you’ll recall that we took an in-depth look at why conventional oil production follows a bell curve (known as “Hubbert’s Curve”), and where on that curve we find ourselves today—which happens to be, either at or very near the peak. Continuing with our A. Whitney Brown-style “The Big Picture” approach, we need to now talk about unconventional oil sources, which […]

Back in the mid-to-late ‘80s, when Dennis Miller had a massive mullet (and his stand-up performances were much more likely to be attended by you and your friends than your distant aunt and uncle who worked on the ’72 Nixon campaign), his “Weekend Update” features on Saturday Night Live were often enriched by little segments featuring writer and comedian A. Whitney Brown, who, with just the right amounts of sarcasm, compassion, wit, and insight, would give us “The Big Picture.” In these editorials, Brown shared his perceptions about the topics of […]