Business

In his popular poem, All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten, writer Robert Fulghum proclaimed: “Most of what I really need To know about how to live And what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten.” Attorneys and others in the legal profession are often required to address challenging questions about ethics and unprofessional behavior. When faced with these issues, would you make the “right” call? You be the judge with interactive voting when faced with real issues from actual scenarios attorneys have had to address.

Knowing who your client is and what duties you have is a problem in cases ranging from the mega Caesars bankruptcy case to actions involving a distressed small family business that is jointly owned by several relatives. This presentation will address several attorney/client ethical issues, both in and out of bankruptcy, when jointly representing clients, including practical considerations when representing a group of closely related businesses, attorney/client privileges between multiple clients, and state and federal law ethical issues related to “who is your client.”

A panel of eminent U.S. professionals will discuss current trends in U.S. insolvencies and restructurings, explore current legislation, comment on developments in the financial sector for distressed lending and highlight any emerging trends.

After the dismissal of the Delaware filing by Baha Mar, should we assume that other cases (whether chapter 11 or chapter 15) involving non-U.S. entities filed in the U.S. will receive the same fate? This will be one of the numerous cases that will be examined in this panel on cutting-edge chapter 15 and other cross-border cases.

Join in the fun with ABI’s rendition of the American classic game show “Hollywood Squares,” where some of your favorite celebrity bankruptcy judges serve up a smorgasbord of dubious and comical answers to help contestants forge a winning tic-tac-toe. And you will learn something about bankruptcy law, too!

This panel will focus on three current topics: (1) discovery, with an emphasis on the impact of the new federal discovery rules regarding “proportionality”; recent developments in e-discovery, including questions of possession, custody and control in discovery disputes; the Model Protocol for Discovery of Electronically Stored Information (ESI); and limitations on e-discovery (ResCap); (2) litigating with “common interests,” covering all about what a “common interest” is, whether an agreement is needed and court approval should be sought, the limits compared to attorney/client and work-product privileges, whether “common interests” can cease, and what happens if they do; and (3) STN and 9019s, discussing how 9019 has grown since STN into a tool for resolving potential litigation during a bankruptcy proceeding, who is allowed to settle, exclusive rights to settle, when a committee with a right to prosecute can settle with a debtor and others (Lyondell, Sabine), and whether 9019 in the context of confirmation is any different (NII Holdings, Adelphia).

In this discussion, leading practitioners in both bringing and defending significant fraudulent transfer claims will describe the current best practices gleaned from their substantial experiences.

This panel will discuss the recent changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure as they pertain to e-discovery, as well as recent case law interpreting the new rules in the bankruptcy context. Our e-discovery expert and our bankruptcy practitioners will discuss the rules from the perspective of debtors, creditors and litigation targets in commercial bankruptcy cases.

This program will address the ethical obligations and best practices to be used by bankruptcy professionals to protect client confidences and valuable estate property in the era of the data breach. The panel will review the rules governing the attorney/client privilege in U.S., The Caymans, and other jurisdictions, as well as the ethical obligations of professionals to secure client information in their possession to forestall the unwanted disclosure of such information due to a data breach.