Colorado State Approved Sessions

A discussion of what to do when you are in the middle of “Litigators Gone Wild” while maintaining your ethics and your cool.

p{ margin: 1em !important; } A panel discussion charting the emergence of special insolvency regimes in different jurisdictions and evaluating their effectiveness. Are industry or sector based specialist regimes the way forward?

Among the many issues that need to be negotiated between England and the EU for the Brexit to happen is the one dealing with restructuring and insolvency law. The U.K. has in recent years — due to its common membership in the European Insolvency Regulation regime — turned into a hotspot for foreign companies (and individuals) wanting to avail themselves of the English legal infrastructure for their recoveries. This scheme of arrangement — the companies’ voluntary arrangement in combination with the U.K.'s enormously efficient court system — has become highly attractive, since the decisions of English courts are generally recognized automatically throughout Europe. Brexit might change this and deprive other countries of what is currently a huge advantage (and source of income). It is also unclear what will happen with all those contracts under which non-U.K. parties have subjected themselves to English law; Brexit’s implications on them are likely to create enormous problems. This panel will discuss these complicated issues and more.

This panel will look at the questions surrounding the typical life cycle of distressed investing in Europe. The panelists have a significant amount of experience in all aspects of the process, from choosing investments to structuring and funding to exiting the deal. Their insights, including the good, the bad and the ugly, should prove to be an informative and entertaining tour around a complex issue that nevertheless has a high degree of profit potential for those who get it right!

Sir Ivan Rogers career in the U.K. civil service previously included work for British politicians Kenneth Clarke and Sir Leon Brittan, and he was chosen in 2003 to be Principal Private Secretary to then Prime Minister Tony Blair. From November 2013 to January 2017, Rogers took on the role of the U.K.’s Representative to the European Union in Brussels. Following the Brexit referendum in June 2016, Rogers resigned his position in January of this year to permit a smooth handover to his successor who would conduct the Brexit negotiations. His experience of the inner workings of the EU give him a unique insight into how the Brexit negotiations may play out and, coupled with his work in the Treasury and the City, he will be able to give our audience an intellectual view of how the land lies.

This session will focus on debtors’ attorneys’ pre-bankruptcy advice and planning regarding the protection of a debtor’s assets, including maximizing exemptions without getting into trouble, analyzing and counseling the client on the vulnerability of transfers of property that the debtor already made to family members or trusts before seeking your counsel, permissible actions to mitigate liabilities on account of a debtor’s pre-petition transfers, what can legitimately and ethically be done to enable debtors to maximize their exemptions without jeopardizing their discharges, and the use of family trusts, self-settled trusts and the effect of the new Domestic Asset Protection Trust Act in Michigan.

Even beginning creditors’ attorneys know that the automatic stay prevents them from enforcing their clients’ rights to their collateral. But what can they do in chapter 7 and 13 cases, and when should they do it? This session will focus on the basic legal issues facing secured creditors in these consumer cases and the development of effective and economical strategies for dealing with them. What are the legal standards to obtain relief from the automatic stay? What do the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure and the local bankruptcy rules require as attachments? What must the motion allege, and who has the burden of proof if an objection is made? Do these standards differ in chapters 7 and 13? When is the right time to bring a motion to lift a stay in a chapter 7 or 13 case? Should you seek to have a chapter 7 debtor reaffirm your debt? If a chapter 7 debtor doesn’t reaffirm but just keeps making the payments, what should you tell your client to do? How does § 365(p) work, and do you need to have the court involved? Loan modifications are common in chapter 13, but is there such a thing as a loan modification in a chapter 7? Can the court reopen a case to approve a post-discharge reaffirmation or loan modification in chapter 7? Can a chapter 13 debtor force your client to take property they don’t want by surrendering the property or vesting it in your client?

Determinations of values are central to virtually every aspect of a consumer bankruptcy case. How should debtors value assets on their schedules? What should they rely on for value, and what is their attorney’s role and responsibility? When are appraisals needed? What weight is given to BPOs and tax statements? What can creditors and trustees do to challenge the debtor’s values? What quotient of evidence do debtors, creditors and trustees need to litigate the value of a creditor’s collateral, a residence in a chapter 13 lien-strip, or a contested abandonment of property in a chapter 7 case, a contested redemption or a contested exemption?