Rhode Island State Approved Sessions

This panel will discuss the Supreme Court’s decision in Bellingham, the coming decision in Wellness, as well as other topical issues of interest.

Commercial Fraud/Mediation Committees: This mock mediation of commercial fraud litigation will utilize the talents of several of the leading mediation experts in the country. This program will demonstrate best practices in representing parties in mediation, as well as highlight key practice pointers for all involved in an effective mediation process.

Ethics & Professional Compensation/Real Estate Committees: This panel will explore various ethical issues that often arise in a single asset real estate bankruptcy case from the perspectives of the debtor, secured creditor and bankruptcy judge — via an entertaining and interactive fictional case study.

Educational Session of Committees: The Bankruptcy Code provides enhanced and often unique opportunities to resolve tax issues faced by distressed businesses and individuals. Our program will provide a primer on how to address tax issues before and after filing for bankruptcy relief, followed by a discussion on significant tax problems faced by business and consumer debtors.

Labor & Employment/Financial Advisors & Investment Banking/Legislation Committees: This panel will address public pension law, including their financial magnitude, and will focus on a number of timely current issues ranging from constitutional matters to state authorization, § 903 and 904 concerns, and relevant legislation. The panelists will draw upon their recent experiences, particularly from municipal bankruptcy cases, to highlight key themes and provide relevant insights.

This panel will discuss the various types of evidentiary privileges that arise in bankruptcy practice — including joint-defense privilege, Fifth Amendment, attorney/client privilege and husband/wife privilege — and how they may be inadvertently waived. The session will also include what happens to these privileges in connection with 363 asset sales, the establishment of liquidating trusts and other sticky issues.

Several authors of ABI’s recent publication, The Chief Restructuring Officer’s Guide to Bankruptcy, will be joined by other experts to discuss various issues raised in the book and provide practical insight into the rights and responsibilities of CROs in distressed situations.

This program will cover recent developments in distressed-asset sales. Topics will include successor liability, finality of sales and adherence to procedures, the interplay between §§ 363 and 365(h), intellectual property sale issues, break-up fees, collusive bidding issues and other topical issues.

An issue consistently raised during the course of the Consumer Bankruptcy Fee Study was the effect of higher bankruptcy costs and the cumbersome and time-consuming bankruptcy process on distributions to unsecured creditors. Given that increasing creditor distributions was a reason for BAPCPA’s enactment, that this question was ripe for exploration. Prof. Lupica will present the findings of her study and the panel will discuss.

This first session of a new “skills” seminar series will examine documents that are often used to restructure debt outside of bankruptcy. Learn the purpose and legal underpinnings of the various component parts of frequently used workout documents such as forbearance agreements, intercreditor agreements and restructuring/override agreements. The panel will focus on real-world examples of good and bad provisions of workout documents and will provide drafting tips.