abiLIVE Webinars

Sponsored by ABI's Real Estate Committee Commercial real estate continues to be a sector to watch as we navigate the post-COVID recovery period, which has thus far featured high inflation, rising interest rates, work-from-home preferences and other changes in consumer behavior. This panel of seasoned real estate attorneys and advisors will provide an update on where things stand across all of the key asset classes, including office, retail, industrial, multi-family and hospitality, as the important summer season winds down, in order to arm practitioners with important insights as we head into 2022's fourth quarter.

Sponsored by the Secured Credit Committee This webinar will delve into issues involving digital accounts, cryptocurrency and NFTs, including how to get secured and perfected, how to liquidate, and bankruptcy-specific considerations. The panelists also will discuss UCC Article 12 and its impact on the digital-asset world for secured parties. The presentation will help practitioners better understand the considerations and issues they should be spotting when advising their constituents on dealing with digital assets.

Survey the landscape of filing trends through the first half of 2022 (Jan. 1-June 30), and gain an informed statistical perspective of what could happen next in bankruptcy, with this panel of key experts, who will be utilizing data provided by Epiq Bankruptcy Analytics.

Hosted by ABI's Unsecured Trade Creditors Committee This program will be structured as a case study and will delve into the prosecution and defense sides of a recently settled preference case in which the presenters were involved. The parties will engage in a free-flowing discussion of their respective positions folllwing a brief discussion of the underlying bankruptcy cases. In addition to various aspects of the subsequent new value (paid/unpaid, treatment of § 503(b)(9) and critical-vendor payments, etc.) and ordinary-course-of-business defenses (subjective and objective, including purported payment pressure and a bifurcated set of payment terms, etc.) that are at issue in the vast majority of preference cases, the presenters will also discuss less frequently raised defenses/issues, including, but not limited to, the critical vendor defense, and the impact of (1) pre- and post-petition recoupment/setoff rights on a defendant’s § 502(h) claim, and (2) a material unpaid post-administrative claim on the parties’ settlement strategy and related positions.

ABI's Business Reorganization and Commercial and Regulatory Law Committees ERISA/PBGC issues in bankruptcy/reorganization cases always raise interesting and challenging questions. Are you prepared to identify and handle them? Please join us for this special ABI-members-only webinar, during which the speakers will address both single-employer and multi-employer pension funding, termination and withdrawal-liability issues, other PBGC/ERISA-focused bankruptcy issues, and ERISA fiduciary issues that often arise in administering or terminating an ERISA-governed retirement plan in a bankruptcy/reorganization setting.

Sponsored by ABI's Real Estate Committee The private and for-profit college, university and school sector continues to be challenged due to decreasing enrollment, cost structures and increased competition from community colleges, area technical schools and online offerings that students turned to during the pandemic. It is estimated that there are hundreds of these real estate-heavy institutions, which can have campuses with substantial improvements having been made, or they can operate solely in leased space. This program will focus on how the real estate footprint of these institutions can be utilized in connection with other turnaround strategies to achieve a turnaround or restructuring. The discussion will include public/private partnerships for parking, dormitories and more, sale-leasebacks and bridge financing, lease restructurings, monetizing surplus real estate, developing owned real estate, and marketing closed campuses for repurposing or redevelopment.

Hosted by the Mediation Committee Mediators are akin to psychologists, using skills of diplomacy and psychology to attempt to bring divergent people to a consensus. At ABI's 2022 Annual Spring Meeting, Dr. Bruce Rabin discussed how nearly two years of remote work has taken a psychological toll on people. From the standpoint of legal practice in general and mediation in particular, this has impacted everything from how we do business and how we relate to legal adversaries to how both mediators and mediation parties interact with each other and make decisions. As a follow-up to Dr. Rabin’s presentation, this webinar will discuss further the impacts, pros and cons, of remote mediation, which has forced mediators to adapt their skills to an environment where the parties never get in the same room. What difficulties does remote mediation present? What observations have been made on how remote mediation has affected the decision-making process? Does remote mediation pose unique challenges to obtaining a settlement? What has been made easier using remote technologies? This webinar will also report on the results of a survey the Mediation Committee conducted regarding members' thoughts and comments about remote mediation, and whether it is here to stay in some hybrid fashion.

Hosted by the Financial Advisors and Investment Banking Committee Subchapter V cases often involve troubled small businesses with limited financial means to hire a financial advisor. One unique feature about subchapter V cases is that a case trustee is appointed in every case, and some of these trustees are experienced bankruptcy professionals with backgrounds in accounting and finance. This panel is comprised of nonlawyer subchapter V trustees who regularly serve as financial advisors and accountants in chapter 11 matters. The panelists will share their perspectives on how they have used their financial and accounting experience to help subchapter V debtors successfully negotiate and confirm plans where feasibility and valuation issues have been raised.

It has been more than a year since the new Dutch Act on court-sanctioning of private composition to avoid bankruptcy, the so-called WHOA or Dutch Scheme, entered into force. The new Dutch Scheme has received a lot of attention in the (international) market because it offers a flexible restructuring tool in the Netherlands, a jurisdiction that plays an important role in many international restructurings. Notably, the Dutch Scheme introduced debtor-in-possession proceedings, which aim to achieve debt-restructurings outside of formal Dutch bankruptcy processes. Join this panel of experts as they take a look at the Dutch Scheme and the similarities it has to U.S. chapter 11 and English scheme processes, and whether these similarities can also be seen in practice.

Sponsored by Squire Patton Boggs From the pandemic to Europe’s largest military conflict since World War II, it seems the world is moving from one extraordinary period to another. The conflict in Europe has generated a maze of rapid legal, political and economic responses from authorities around the globe. Those actions are rippling through capital, markets and boardrooms as businesses grapple with how to respond. Join ABI and a panel of experts to discuss where we are headed and what businesses should consider.