Bankruptcy Generally

Update on Catholic Dioceses's Chapter 11 Filings, Fall 2018 Edition

11/17/18

A few weeks ago, Marie Reilly (Penn State Law, University Park) posted to SSRN a new paper, Catholic Dioceses in Bankruptcy, which details the outcomes of the eighteen chapter 11 cases filed by Catholic dioceses and religious institutes since 2004.

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File This Under Calling BS on Bankruptcy Fearmongering

06/21/18

As anyone familiar with bankruptcy would have predicted, the dire predictions of disaster for municipalities seeking bankruptcy protection have proven to be ... let's just say exaggerated.

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Combatting Fear of Abuse--A Sisyphean Task?

06/18/18

Over the past few weeks, at conferences with judges and policymakers in Varna (Bulgaria), Seoul, and Beijing, I've been confronted with a surprising degree of skepticism about personal insolvency systems and fear of opportunistic individuals abusing the ability to evade their debts (especially while hiding assets).

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Savings Plans and Chapter 13

06/14/18

David Jones, Chief US Bankruptcy Judge of the Southern District of Texas, has just posted a nifty empirical study of the effects of savings plans on the success of Chapter 13 filings.

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Tax Reform and Nonprofit Bankruptcy

04/17/18

It's Tax Day! When the new tax bill was debated late last year, a few reports noted an unintended consequence of the bill's expansion of the standard deduction might be decrease people's charitable contributions, in turn harming nonprofits. After the bill passed, I continued to hear comments about the increased standard deductions' potential to cause financial problems for nonprofits, and saw estimates of a loss of $2 billion to the sector. Financial problems, of course, make me think of bankruptcy.

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Notes on The Weinstein Company Bankruptcy's First-Day Hearing: Complexity

03/26/18

Some rarely-heard terms at The Weinstein Company's March 20 chapter 11 first-day hearing: sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape.

A more common utterance among TWC representatives: complex. The industry, the capital structure, the lending arrangements. All complex. Complex complex complex complex complex.

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Education Department Request for Information on Student Loan Discharge in Bankruptcy

02/28/18

Following up on Alan White's post from this morning about the Education Department's draft notice about debt collection laws applicable to student loan debt collectors that prompted a Twitter moment, some more student loan news from the Education Department.

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Merit Mgmt. Group LP v. FTI Consulting Inc.

02/28/18

The Supreme Court weighed in today on one of the the most important circuit splits in the bankruptcy world, namely the scope of one of the section 546(e) safe harbors from avoidance actions in bankruptcy.  Section 546(e) has two safe harbors, one for "settlement payments" and the other for transfers "made by or to (or for the benefit of) a ...

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