CreditSlips

What's Up With Oral Opinions in Bankruptcy?

06/28/21

I've been reading a lot of bankruptcy court transcripts this past year, and I've noticed how frequently judges issue rulings orally from the bench. Sometimes these rulings are clearly drafted out, complete with pincites, etc. Yet these decision are never published. The only way to find them is to dig through the transcripts, which are usually not available on the free public dockets, but only in PACER. 

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Venue Reform: Once More Unto the Breach

06/28/21

Chapter 11 venue reform is back and not a moment too soon. The perennial problem of forum shopping has devolved into naked judge picking with what appears to be competition among a handful of judges to land large chapter 11 case. The results are incredible: last year 57% of the large public company bankruptcies ended up before just three judges, and 39% ended up before a single judge. When judges compete for cases, the entire system is degraded.

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Antique Chinese Debt - The Latest

06/25/21

Mark Weidemaier and I have talked about antique Chinese (mostly Imperial) debt often on this site.  And we've also discussed these debts on our podcast with sovereign debt gurus Tracy Alloway and Lee Buchheit (here).  Yes, we are a bit obsessed. Part of our fascination with this topic is that the Chinese government asserted a defense of odiousness to paying these debts.

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Collins v. Yellen

06/23/21
The Supreme Court ruled today in Collins v. Yellen, a case brought by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac preferred shareholders that challenged both the constitutionality of the FHFA Director's appointment and the 2012 amendment to Treasury's stock purchase agreement with Fannie and Freddie that provided for all of Fannie and Freddie's profits to be swept into Treasury.
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Fake Lender Rule Repeal

06/21/21

The House is schedule to take up a vote on repealing the OCC's "Fake Lender Rule," that would deem a loan to be made by a bank for usury purposes as long as the bank is a lender of record on the loan. Under the rule, issued in the waning days of the Trump administration, the bank is deemed to be the lender if its name is on the loan documentation, irrespective any other facts.

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Book Rec: Range (or Yet Another Paean to Learning from Failure)

06/12/21

With summer upon us, I thought others might be searching for good new reading, as I was when I took up a smart friend's longtime recommendation to read Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. So much good stuff in here.

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Elliott, Apollo, Caesar's Palace and a Bunch of Bankruptcy Law Professors

05/28/21

One of the most dramatic stories in corporate finance and bankruptcy over the past decade has been the Caesar's Palace battle between a bunch of hard nosed distressed debt hedge funds and big bad private equity shops.  A bunch of masters of the universe types fighting it out to the death. (For my part: I'm interested in this because some of the big players from the Argentine pari passu battle are involved and there was a battle over the aggressive use of Exit Consents).

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Judge Shopping in Bankruptcy

05/22/21

Several months ago, I did a long post about how Purdue Pharma's bankruptcy was the poster child for dysfunction in chapter 11.The gist of the argument is that the procedural checks and balances that make chapter 11 bankruptcy a fair and credible system have broken down because of a confluence of three trends:

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The $900 Million Back Office Error

05/14/21

I love this story -- a bank erroneously sends money to a bunch of lenders who are angry with the bank and the debtor for other reasons. The bank discovers the computer error and asks for its money back. The angry lenders refuse to give back what was clearly an erroneous deposit. There is litigation. And the court says to the lenders who received the erroneous deposit: You can keep the money.  

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