No CLE

This panel explores investors' perspectives on acquiring distressed commercial real estate in today's volatile market. The panelists delve into such key challenges as interest rate fluctuations, limited debt availability, economic uncertainty, oversupply and rising material costs. Gain insights from industry experts actively transacting in the current market, and discover their outlooks on the future of distressed real estate.

Featuring the regional judges of the Rocky Mountain Bankruptcy Conference, this session will strive to answer questions you have on current issues.

This lively panel of bankruptcy judges will debate the most pressing and controversial issues shaping bankruptcy law today. Gain unique insights from the bench on evolving case law, procedural challenges and emerging trends affecting practitioners across the bankruptcy spectrum.

This plenary will consist of small group huddles with judges and fellow attendees to work through case problems.

Brody Mullins is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and author of The Wolves of K Street: The Secret History of How Big Money Took Over Big Government. A veteran journalist with The Wall Street Journal, he has spent two decades uncovering the intersection of business and politics, exposing scandals that led to landmark reforms. His award-winning reporting has shaped public understanding of corporate influence in Washington, earning him accolades such as the George Polk Award and multiple Everett Dirksen Awards. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Politico and The Atlantic, and he has been featured on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC.

In today’s volatile commercial real estate market, the intersection of lease law and bankruptcy is more complex than ever. This panel dives into the real-world challenges landlords and tenants face when bankruptcy hits, using recent high-profile cases — including WeWork and a wave of "Chapter 22" retail filings — to examine the growing tensions among market realities, restructuring costs and the Bankruptcy Code.

Liability-management exercises (LMEs) have become common transactions in order for financially distressed companies to obtain financing secured by previously encumbered assets. From uptiers, drop-downs, double dips and pari plus transactions, courts have begun to analyze and rule on the enforceability of LMEs and, in certain instances, their limitations. This panel will analyze various examples of recent LMEs and discuss the repercussions of such transactions from both the borrower and lender perspective.

Despite the potential need to reassess liability management exercise (LME) structuring following the Fifth Circuit’s Serta decision, LMEs will continue to proliferate. Questions remain, though: Should we view LMEs as nothing more than free options for sponsors and a rearranging of deck chairs on a sinking ship? Or can they be a force for good, leading to improved enterprise value and corresponding improved returns to all creditors? If so, how can companies maximize the chances of their LME doing so? This panel will address these questions and more.

This panel discusses the history and evolution of liability-management transactions, including uptiers, drop-downs and double-dips, while providing insights from company, lender and creditor perspectives. The panelists also discuss recent developments and trends following the Serta and Mitel decisions, as well as their perspectives on how these types of transactions will be utilized going forward — and whether they are tools for success or invitations for trouble.

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.