Some recent high profile restructuring debtors made multi-million dollar retention bonuses on the eve of bankruptcy filings. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) took notice of these pre-petition payments and, in September 2021, published a report with data showing that debtors may be “working around the [Bankruptcy] Code’s restrictions” by paying bonuses prior to filing…

The Supreme Court declined to take up a case this month concerning the doctrine of equitable mootness, a topic that continues to rile bankruptcy courts and generate controversy amongst practitioners and scholars. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals recently described the doctrine as one that is “misleadingly” labeled, but which allows courts to dismiss an…

On September 23, 2021, United States Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) introduced the Bankruptcy Venue Reform Act of 2021 (the “Venue Reform Act”), which would tighten the Bankruptcy Code’s venue rules for corporate debtors. A corporate filer would be limited to the district containing its principal place of business or the district where its principal assets have been located for the preceding 180 days.…

Federal district court judge Paul Gardephe recently spared Keleil Isaza Tuzman from additional jail time, despite Tuzman’s December 2017 convictions for securities and mail fraud, the latest twist in the long, strange saga of KIT Digital. Tuzman was the founder and former CEO of KIT Digital Inc., a publicly traded software startup that offered video…

The House of Delegates for the American Bar Association recently passed Resolution 512 urging Congress to amend the Bankruptcy Code to permit student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy without proving “undue hardship” as is currently required. The resolution was co-sponsored by the Young Lawyers Division, the Law Student Division and the Standing Committee on…

Student loans are a big issue in the United States. According to the most recent data by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, there is currently $1.57 trillion in outstanding student debt, up from just $0.26 trillion 17 years ago.[1] Before the CARES Act suspended payments and interest accruals from August 2020-January 2022,…

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware recently denied the US Trustee’s motion to compel post-confirmation quarterly fees from Paragon Offshore, plc under 28 U.S.C. § 1930.[1]
The court described the case’s facts as simple: Paragon (and some related entities) filed for Chapter 11 in early 2016. In June of 2017, its…