Business Reorganization

This panel helps attendees avoid the landmines of a franchisee chapter 11 filing and better understand the current law on leasehold issues, critical vendor considerations, pre-petition termination of franchise agreements and a potpourri of pointers from multiple perspectives. The session also includes a hypothetical with practical solutions and considerations based on recent cases (published and nonpublished opinions) to the hypothetical.

Is the debtor always right? The Bankruptcy Code and its underlying policies are designed to give the debtor a fresh start and foster reorganization. However, committees and individual creditors are not always on board with a debtor’s restructuring efforts and at times prefer payment over compromise or even a going-forward business partner. This panel will cover the tools and strategies committees and individual creditors use to slow down a debtor’s restructuring efforts to address the collective demands of committees or the individual needs of creditors both big and small.

Avoidance actions are necessary not only for crossovers, but also for stakeholders with some frequency or practice in non-mega venues. This panel will dive into avoidance actions and their role in restructuring.

Hosted by Commercial and Regulatory Law & Secured Credit Committees This panel will discuss various issues arising from the development of a new class of collateral: that which is remotely controllable. The concept of a secured creditor controlling its collateral is of course not a new or novel concept. However, the ability of secured creditors to control their collateral remotely is growing rapidly as new technology and new types of assets are developed. Robots, vehicles and even farm equipment can be directed and controlled remotely to do any number of different tasks, including simply leaving the custody of the borrower and traveling to the custody of a secured creditor. Beyond well-established technology, with the onset of AI and machine learning, collateral (software, vehicles, satellites, etc.) could be programmed to automatically shut down — or phone home — upon the occurrence of particular conditions. This brave new world of valuable assets, which can serve as meaningful collateral for debt, raises new, challenging issues about how these assets are used, regulated and pledged. The panelists will address an array of topics and unanswered questions about how the law is (or is not) suited to addresses the new issues, the risks for creditor and borrower, and the role of the government in finding efficient solutions to potentially unforeseen issues.

It is expected that a significant amount of activity in the next 18 months will consist of out-of-court restructurings, with a smaller proportion being chapter 11 bankruptcies.  Experts in restructuring estimate that out-of-court restructurings will comprise between 70% and 75% of the workout “transactions” made over the next year and a half. This panel will delve into what we can expect to see in the near future.

This panel of seasoned professionals will discuss recent developments and trends in U.S. bankruptcy and restructuring.

This panel of bankruptcy judges from the Eighth and Tenth Circuits will discuss several recent decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court, the Eighth and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals and Bankruptcy Appellate Panels, and elsewhere that are likely to impact your bankruptcy practice.

This panel will delve into the evolving legal challenges and restructuring opportunities for businesses caught between state and federal regulations, particularly those in the marijuana industry. The panelists will highlight alternatives to bankruptcy for marijuana-related businesses (MRBs) and their creditors, offering practical strategies for financial stability. The session also will cover innovative approaches to restructuring other businesses that operate in legally ambiguous spaces.