Claims

This freewheeling, unscripted session, led by ABI’s Editor at Large Bill Rochelle, features three bankruptcy judges (one retired) and an experienced bankruptcy practitioner-turned-law-professor sharing their views on a variety of recent decisions covering a broad spectrum of hot topics in commercial and consumer bankruptcy law. Part of their discussion highlights five (or more) recently decided Supreme Court decisions that every bankruptcy lawyer needs to know about, including issues and questions that some of those decisions left undecided.Learning Objectives:Attendees will identify and analyze recent developments, emerging trends, and significant decisions impacting bankruptcy law and practice.Attendees will evaluate the practical implications of current hot-button issues facing debtors, creditors, trustees, and other bankruptcy stakeholders.Attendees will apply insights from recent legal and industry developments to enhance strategic decision-making and client representation in bankruptcy matters.

Moderated by ABI’s Bill Rochelle, seven bankruptcy judges from New York, Delaware, Houston and New Jersey will predict how the Supreme Court is likely to rule on the most controversial issues in reorganization, Subchapter V and Chapter 13.Learning ObjectivesAttendees will gain insight into how bankruptcy judges view emerging and contentious issues in reorganization cases, Subchapter V, and Chapter 13.Attendees will explore judicial perspectives on how the Supreme Court may approach unresolved or split issues in bankruptcy practice.Attendees will examine practical implications of differing judicial interpretations for debtors, creditors, and case strategy.

This panel will provide an in-depth examination of the statutory frameworks governing fraudulent transactions in both the Cayman Islands and the U.S. Through a comparative lens, the discussion will analyze how different jurisdictions approach avoidance actions and fraudulent-transfer claims. The panelists also will explore recent and influential decisions from the U.S., Cayman and English courts — including Bilta and Air Arabia — to illustrate emerging trends and judicial reasoning in cross-border insolvency matters. The session will conclude with a practical discussion of the strategic considerations, procedural hurdles and real-world challenges insolvency practitioners face when investigating and pursuing fraudulent transaction claims across jurisdictions.

Resolved: The doctrine of in pari delicto should bar a trustee from recovering solely for the benefit of creditors.Resolved: The above transaction is an avoidable fraudulent conveyance, and the original lenders may recover more than via a general unsecured claim.A debtor engaged in an LME transaction in which the debtor received substantial liquidity by subordinating a debt secured by a first lien on the debtor’s principal assets to a new, more senior first lien. The debtor received desperately needed liquidity, but the subordination substantially impaired the recoveries received by the original first-lien lenders. A subsequent bankruptcy was filed within 18 months. Unsecured creditor recoveries will be 2%. The court determined that the subordination agreement violated the terms of the original loan agreements.

This session will cover recent Supreme Court and Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Circuit cases that you need to know about.

Join ABI Editor-at-Large Bill Rochelle for this fun and informative session as he and six judges address recent Second Circuit cases, and predict how the circuit will rule on tough questions on the way up. An attendee favorite!

This panel presents a pragmatic discussion on the varying liens that intrude upon debtors’ lives, and the array of bankruptcy-centric issues and tools that can be effectively utilized to confront those liens.

This panel explores ways in which practitioners are avoiding the direct impact of Purdue by seeking to release only derivative claims. The panelists analyze the direct/derivative distinction more broadly by discussing its impact on what constitutes property of the estate, whether pursuit of a derivative claim violates the stay, and what claims an estate fiduciary has the power to bring under § 544, and discusses the Whittaker, Clark & Daniels decision.

Insurance carriers are now permitted to participate in the plan-confirmation process, even when a plan is “insurance neutral.” How do recent Supreme Court rulings change the confirmation process, or will the Bankruptcy Code permit debtors to alter the rights of insurance carriers over their objection of insurance and bind them to the terms of the plan? Finally, there are no circuit splits, no nonconsensual third-party releases under a plan — or is the issue still unsettled when the plan “pays claims in full,” and what does it mean to “consent” to a release? Opt-in, opt-out, negative notice: What works? This panel will provide an overview of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in Truck Insurance Exchange v. Kaiser Gypsum Co. Inc., et al. and Harrington v. Purdue Pharma L.P., et al. and how they impact a debtor’s ability to confirm a plan. The panelists will discuss how debtors and insurance carriers will need to work to address their competing needs. The panelists also will discuss how debtors will address mass-tort bankruptcies without the third-party-release tool or workarounds, and will look to the case law and confirmed plans in circuits where nonconsensual releases are not permitted.