Video

Panelists will discuss ethical issues relating to due diligence and debtor and creditor actions online as well as practice pointers for engaging in social media.

There have been a number of recent bankruptcy filings by large and high profile healthcare providers, such as the filings of Verity Health System of California, Inc., in Los Angeles (the second largest hospital bankruptcy case in American history), Hospital Acquisition LLC and 25 related debtors d/b/a Promise Health and American Academic Health System (Hahnemann University Hospital and St. Christopher Hospital in Philadelphia) in Wilmington, Delaware, and Astria Health in Yakima, Washington. Additionally, EmpowerHMS owned or helped manage a rural hospital empire that encompassed 18 facilities across eight states. After funding from a controversial lab-billing venture dried up, 12 of the hospitals entered bankruptcy and eight closed their doors. There has also been a steady stream of lower profile cases, including Westlake Hospital in Melrose Park, Illinois, Penobscot Valley Hospital in Maine, and Springfield Hospital, Inc., in Vermont, and it appears that there are more filings in store. The webinar will discuss (i) the reasons for this growing trend of healthcare cases, (ii) the unique challenges in those cases, which involve not only the typical payment of creditor claims, but also the care of patients, (iii) the particular issues that arise uniquely in this class of cases, including jurisdiction over the Medicare and Medicaid Programs, treatment of provider agreements, the intersection of nonprofit law and bankruptcy law, and treatment of medical malpractice claims, and (iv) whether this trend of healthcare filings will continue.

We will take a deeper dive into some of the more interesting and unique local rules that practitioners should be aware of when completing assets sales in various districts. The panelists will also discuss the need for local rules, differences across jurisdictions, and the process for revisions and implementation.

This panel will discuss preferences and fraudulent conveyances, the Fairfield cases relating to extraterritoriality, and whether returning the funds acts as a defense (Kingsley v. Wetzel (In re Kingsley), 518 F.3d 874, 877-78 (11th Cir. 2008)) versus what the Seventh Circuit has ruled on the issue (Nostalgia Network Inc. v. Lockwood, 315 F3d 717, 720 (7th Cir. 2002)).

Resolved: A creditor in possession of a debtor’s collateral must surrender it to avoid a stay violation. Resolved: The legal test or application of the standard of disinterestedness should be changed.

How do judges view the various types of committees–official statutory committees (including unsecured creditor, equity, retiree and tort claimant committees) and ad hoc committees? Is the makeup of the committee (trade/landlords/noteholders/bondholders/litigation claimants) relevant? What is Jevic’s impact on the ability of unsecured creditors’ committees to obtain recoveries for their constituents—do committees representing deeply out-of-the-money creditors have anything left in their toolboxes? This panel will discuss these questions and more relating to official and ad hoc committees.

This panel will explore hot-button issues relating to sales, including: limitations on credit bidding; successor liability and related due process considerations; releases for purchasers under sale orders; and the standard for allowance of break-up fees. The panel will also reflect on lessons learned from the emergency section 363 sale of Lehman.

This session will cover a number of recent confirmation hot topics, including pre-packaged reorganization (In re FullBeauty Brands Holding Corp.), make-whole provisions (In re Ultra Petroleum Corp.), reorganization through rights offerings (In re Pacific Drilling SA), and the ‘one day’ confirmation issue (Pacific Western Bank v. Fagerdala USA-Lompac Inc.).

On May 7, 2019, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (the “CFPB”) issued its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking related to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (the “FDCPA”). The CFPB has proposed several updates to the FDCPA, including: regulations regarding the use of emails and text messages; exemptions from the FDCPA for limited content messages; limitations on the number of telephone calls a debt collector can make per week; model notices and disclosures; and prohibitions related to time-barred debts and credit reporting. However, the proposed amendments do not address the confusion caused when a creditor subject to the FDCPA is required to communicate with a consumer that has filed a bankruptcy case.

Practitioners are constantly looking for ways to expand, or limit, the ability of estate fiduciaries and creditors to avoid transfers. This panel will explore several cutting-edge issues with respect to fraudulent-transfer actions currently playing out in bankruptcy courts, including whether trustees may recover tuition payments by debtor-parents for the benefit of their adult children and the meaning of “reasonably equivalent value” under Section 548(A)(1)(b). The panel will explore opportunities to expand a trustee’s avoidance powers, including a trustee’s ability to stand in the shoes of the IRS and benefit from the 10-year look-back period, Ponzi scheme issues, and applying avoidance powers to foreign defendants. The speakers will also discuss whether silence is still golden in light of Husky International v. Ritz.