2025 Annual Spring Meeting

This panel discusses ethical concerns relating to employing professionals in bankruptcy matters, including disclosure obligations under ethics rules, the Bankruptcy Code and U.S. Trustee guidelines.

This panel focuses on emerging tools that can be used in auctions and sale processes, including the use of social media and other technology.

This panel provides an in-depth, dynamic discussion on (1) forensic analyses employed to identify and untangle fraud and maximize recoveries; (2) standing to bring certain claims in fraud cases; (3) claims often pursued in Ponzi and other fraud cases, including aiding and abetting fraud, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty, and conspiracy; (4) the Ponzi scheme presumption, clawback and defenses; and (5) in pari delicto and its applicability, along with other potential defenses. The panelists highlight and address recent case law developments in fraud cases and their impact on the various constituencies involved.

This panel presents a pragmatic discussion on the varying liens that intrude upon debtors’ lives, and the array of bankruptcy-centric issues and tools that can be effectively utilized to confront those liens.

This panel provides an overview of some key issues, sectors and trends in real estate from a global and cross-border perspective by examining the status of asset class and related global/regional market conditions, issues confronting stakeholders and the legal tools they are using to manage and reposition assets, and predictions for the balance of 2025. Considerations for U.S. investors in non-U.S.-based real estate projects, as well as the perspectives of certain foreign investors or lenders to U.S. real estate-based projects, also is discussed.

This panel explores ways in which practitioners are avoiding the direct impact of Purdue by seeking to release only derivative claims. The panelists analyze the direct/derivative distinction more broadly by discussing its impact on what constitutes property of the estate, whether pursuit of a derivative claim violates the stay, and what claims an estate fiduciary has the power to bring under § 544, and discusses the Whittaker, Clark & Daniels decision.

This panel covers the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) with bankruptcy, intellectual property law and secured transactions law. The panelists explore several questions that current law does not address or insufficiently addresses, such as: Who owns inventions created by AI? Do inventions created by the AI owned by a debtor company become property of a debtor company’s bankruptcy estate? Can a creditor obtain a security interest and perfect a security interest in the things AI creates? Should the UCC, intellectual property law and bankruptcy law be amended to address the new world of AI? How are the new White House administration and Congress addressing these issues?

This panel discusses the role of the subchapter V trustee, the parallels with mediation, and the meaning of "facilitating the development of a consensual plan."

Have you ever fallen in and then out of love with someone or something? If you have, was that love ever rekindled? Those questions set the stage for our Saturday morning plenary conversation between Prof. Melissa Jacoby, author of Unjust Debts, and Sam Gerdano, formerly the executive director of ABI. The story involves a deep analysis of, among other things, bankruptcy law’s origins, policy objectives, interpreting the Bankruptcy Code, lawyers’ ethical duties, and consequences in practice. Both Prof. Jacoby and Mr. Gerdano bring a wealth of experience and knowledge; it should be quite the conversation.