Business

This panel will focus on the continuing role of creditors’ committees in the current chapter 11 environment. As the fulcrum of security moves up the balance sheet, the utility of committees has been coming under attack. Although historically committees have consisted primarily of trade creditors, they now regularly include bondholders, indenture trustees, the PBGC and unions. Learn about the challenges for professionals representing committees and the way committee members evaluate how to fulfill their fiduciary duties.

After you have found your valuation expert, how do you know that the expert’s report is accurate? This panel will discuss some of the red flags that should cause you to raise some questions with your own expert (or consider asking the other side’s expert in cross-examination), and will discuss how organization might make it easier or harder to catch red flags.

The strategic use of Examiners in some of the largest and most complex Chapter 11 cases has become more frequent in recent years. This panel explores the use of an Examiner to investigate, analyze and value potential causes of action and other contentious issues in ResCap and other significant Chapter 11 cases.

This panel will address the entitlement of a secured lender with a "blanket lien" on a company’s assets to share in the going concern or enterprise value of that company when it is liquidated in a § 363 sale or otherwise dealt with under a chapter 11 plan. The circumstances under which such sharing in “going concern” value has been permitted, the cases on both sides of the issue, and the policy arguments in favor of and against the secured lenders’ right to access such value to satisfy its secured claim will be explored.

This panel will present strategies and tips for presenting financial evidence in chapter 11 cases. Panelists will discuss the selection, roles and fee arrangements of financial advisors and experts, employment applications/standards under the Bankruptcy Code, disclosure, protecting privilege, opinion testimony, use of demonstrative evidence, witness preparation and more.

How do different constituencies “play” the same valuation issue? This panel will explore how and why valuation is an art and not a science in chapter 11, and will take on the challenge of debating whether or not this should trouble us as bankruptcy professionals and investors.

This panel will take a look at developments in legal standards for determining the whole enterprise valuation, and their impact on valuation methodology. What drives the market definition and its underlying policy? When is the market likely to be wrong (and how do you show when not to trust the market)? How reliable is a “robust auction,” and why might the outcome differ from an expert valuation? When is an expert valuation likely to be suspect? The status of the “new value doctrine” and related valuation issues will also be discussed.

This session will examine the legal issues that impact the flow and diversion of the value distribution waterfall, including identifying gaps between the scope of, and the methodology for determining, enterprise value and collateral value; the impact of §§ 502, 506(a), 506(c) and 552 on the allowed amount of secured and unsecured claims; and contractual and non-contractual adjustments to legal priorities (including intercreditor lien agreements, intercreditor claim-subordination agreements, participation agreements and collective action, equitable subordination, intercompany claims and substantive consolidation). Using a hypothetical case, the panel will illustrate these issues and the uncertain and complex valuation, allocation and intercreditor issues that can arise in a multi-tranched, multi-debtor restructuring case

In today’s environment, several options exist for effectuating a restructuring of a company in distress. When is a chapter 11 filing the best option given the costs, risks and potential for reputational damage, and when is it not? This panel will discuss the fundamental questions to be asked when considering the alternatives to bankruptcy and, more specifically, when bankruptcy preserves or creates value.