2018 New York City Bankruptcy Conference

This session will discuss the implications of this Supreme Court decision, whether gifting is over, alternative avenues of distributions outside of a plan (e.g., pursuant to DIP order, Short Bark), and remand issues in Jevic.

As the retention of contingency counsel proliferates, stakeholders and their professionals need guidance and creativity in considering the financial arrangements that are negotiated. This panel will focus on ethics and professionalism issues that arise in these retentions, retaining counsel under § 328, how to negotiate and/or determine what compensation is appropriate (20 percent vs. 40 percent), compensation based on case status (e.g., settlement after initial motion practice vs. SJ), hybrid compensation, financing litigation (estate vs. contingency counsel vs. third party, Gawker), who should control settlement as contingency counsel’s stake grows, and when payment of contingency counsel can be contested.

This session will explore the following questions: Should all similarly situated creditors have the right to participate in rights offerings, financings, etc.? Does it violate Bankruptcy Code provisions or policy to allow a subset of creditors to receive fees and increase their recovery at the expense of similarly situated creditors? Is mandatory market-testing a viable solution?

Join in on this discussion of significant insolvency-related developments in Venezuela.

This panel will discuss an update on § 546(e) safe harbors, preemption issues, the cap on recovery under § 550, and Merit Management, Tribune, Physiotherapy and Lyondell.

Interested in mediation? Attend this session to experience a mock mediation and discuss mediation’s benefits and pitfalls. The panel will also examine plan mediation vs. targeted specific issues, as well as material nonpublic information concerns.

What is consent, and how do you infer consent? This panel will discuss jurisdictional issues with third-party releases, as well as recent cases (Millennium Health, Gawker, SunEdison).

In this session, the panel will delve into recent chapter 15 decisions and the use of cross-border protocols in complex multijurisdictional cases ( e.g., SDNY General Order M-511, Delaware LBR 9029-2). Learn about preparing a cross-border case and cash-management issues across cross-border estates, difficulties that arise when dealing with foreign boards, subsidiaries in foreign jurisdictions and limited resources to manage the complications, and the winding down and liquidation of cross-border estates.

This panel will examine recent municipality filings and issues that arise in these cases, such as the ability of public utilities/public service entities to file under the Bankruptcy Code (i.e., to what extent is it an extension of the municipality), interaction with state and federal law, tax-exempt economic-development bonds, and whether there should be a mechanism for distressed states to file. Discussion will include updates on Puerto Rico and other cities.

There has been an increasing trend toward using creative structures to transact around limitations in debt documents in order to raise debt, sell assets and/or distribute value to certain stakeholders, including transferring assets to unrestricted subsidiaries, sale/leaseback transactions and FILO loan structures. Take a look into the resulting litigation surrounding these transactions (e.g., Windstream, iHeart, J.Crew) and discuss how the credit default swap market is affecting financing structures.