Business

This panel will discuss potential conflicts when a lender regularly recommends that a debtor hire their preferred CRO (the debtor is the CRO’s client, but a “one off” client) and the lender is a repeat business, as well as the 1% Rule and retention application disclosures/potential conflicts.

This panel will discuss the three major segments that are ripe to go through distress in the next several years, namely residential care, durable medical equipment, and testing labs/imaging facilities. The panel will also discuss hospital cases (including the sale of nonprofits to for-profits).

Join us to learn whether, when and how to effectively use an expert witness in bankruptcy litigation. Let our panel also show you how to avoid successful motions in limine and disqualification of your expert

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act can have a substantial impact on the administration and reorganization of a chapter 11 debtor. This panel of chapter 11 and WARN Act experts will discuss the impact that the WARN Act has in a chapter 11 bankruptcy case.

This session is a nonlegal overview of the current state of the coal and oil & gas industries and will provide a primer on terminology, extraction methods and related industries. It will also address how energy workouts and restructurings are different from traditional restructurings, and why (with a particular focus on how these companies are financed and their operations are structured — i.e., lease rights, management/servicing agreements, etc.).

This panel will explore the trend of private-equity firms and hedge funds favoring out-of-court workouts (with or without a pre-packaged or pre-arranged bankruptcy case) rather than traditional chapter 11 cases for achieving their restructuring goals. The panel will also debate whether the Chapter 11 Reform Commission’s recommendations adequately address such issues. Cases to be discussed include Tribune Co. fraudulent conveyance litigation, Sun Capital, ICL Holding and Sabine Oil & Gas Corp., et al.

This panel will explore how to navigate the myriad issues caused by bad-faith chapter 11 filings and will discuss current case law and trends, including how and when a case should be dismissed, whether a business entity can be formed by real estate investors solely to file a chapter 11 bankruptcy, venue-shopping and a host of other issues.

Jeffrey N. Pomerantz, Moderator ABI Vice President-Education Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones LLP; Los Angeles Resolved: Curbing pension rights in a chapter 9 case is constitutional. Con: Babette A. Ceccotti Cohen, Weiss & Simon LLP; New York Resolved: Committee member fees are not payable as part of a Chapter 11 plan. Pro: Nan Roberts Eitel Executive Office for U.S. Trustees; Washington, D.C. Con: Dennis F. Dunne Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP; New York Resolved: A chapter 13 debtor may employ § 363 to effect a free-and-clear short sale of his/her principal residence notwithstanding § 1322(b)(2) and the secured creditor’s objection. Pro: Hon. Eugene R. Wedoff U.S. Bankruptcy Court (N.D. Ill.); Chicago Con: Hon. Mary Grace Diehl U.S. Bankruptcy Court (N.D. Ga.); Atlanta

Commission Recommendations on Resolving Court Splits: Coming Soon to a Judicial Opinion Near You ABI's Commission to Study the Reform of Chapter 11 identified more than 30 splits in case law on important issues. Such a split of authority results in delay, increased litigation costs and above all, uncertainty -- imposing a kind of "ambiguity tax" on the system, as one witness put it in testimony before the Commission. The recommendations contained in the Commission's final report, in many cases, can be implemented by judicial opinion at the bankruptcy court or court of appeals level, without need for action by Congress. This program featuring some of the most experienced and thoughtful judges on the bench today, will assess the Commission recommendations, and identify some that might be effected soon.