Corporate Bankruptcy

Ad Hocracy

10/21/12

A storyline in the AMR bankruptcy is exposing how confusing it's becoming (at least to me) to keep track of negotiating groups in chapter 11.  (Here's a good recent story from WSJ.)  Gone are the days of the simple Creditors Committee.  Now we have Ad Hoc groups of bondholders.  While there was some initial dust-up about disclosure requirements when these sorts of groups emerged, that's settled somewhat.  What I am now baffled about is the Ad

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Turn the gold to chrome

10/03/12

Some thoughts on the indirect costs of financial distress, over at Dealbook.

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One life, all I need

09/20/12

I weigh in on the possible chapter 11 implications of the many firms rushing to issue as much debt as they possibly can, over at Dealbook.

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In Defense of Bankruptcy Courts (or, Is Bankruptcy Really That Exceptional?)

09/18/12

Although not always acknowledged expressly, exceptionalism is pervasive in bankruptcy scholarship. Some work makes no attempt to contexualize bankruptcy within the federal courts, apparently assuming its unique qualities (for example, the disinterest in most bankruptcy venue scholarship about venue laws applicable to other multi-party federal litigation). But other projects are more deliberate in their exceptionalist pursuits.

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And the wind blows wild again

09/11/12

Me, over at this place called The New York Times, on the safe harbors in the Code, again.

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What's the Point of Billable Rates?

08/25/12

Felix Salmon has a very insightful post about lawyers' hourly billing rates.  His take:

differences in billable rates are basically an accounting fiction, which is used to come up with a calculable final figure to be presented as the bill, but which do not actually reflect the difference in value between various strata of lawyers. 

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Japanese Resturcturing

08/20/12

Interesting story in today's FT about a case now pending in Tokyo -- although some of the concerns expressed should sound very familiar to US chapter 11 types.

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Everything You Always Wanted to Know About CDOs (But Were Afraid to Ask)

08/13/12

Bill Bratton and I have a new paper out, called A Transactional Genealogy of Scandal:  from Michael Milken to Enron to Goldman Sachs.

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Finally, WIll We Stop Talking About the Auto Cases?

08/11/12

I generally try to avoid politics on this blog, although readers know that I was generally supportive of the Administration's approach to the auto bankruptcies. You can critize the overuse of 363 sales, but the auto cases were not particularly special in that regard.

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What's On at a Courthouse Near You

07/17/12

In addition to a post last week broadly raising visitors' physicial interaction with courts, an earlier post discussed variation in the website availability of daily calendars for U.S. bankruptcy courtrooms.

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