2018

The Limited Liability Company is an ever more popular business entity structure. Its popularity makes perfect sense in that it is designed to limit owners’ personal liability and to provide greater contractual flexibility in all aspects of company ownership, management, allocations, and distributions, among many other things. LLCs may also offer significant tax benefits. However, state LLC law and its interplay with federal bankruptcy law is a minefield of trouble for the LLC debtor or where one or more members of an LLC are the debtors in a bankruptcy proceeding. This panel will explore the unique issues that LLCs present in bankruptcy. Believe it, if you have not seen this issue yet, you are about to!

Panel discussion of issues affecting your consumer clients: consequences of assumption and rejection of executory contracts; Chapter 13 update; the incapacitated client; undisclosed assets; proofs of claim and FDCPA; TCPA; revisions to Bankruptcy Rules; advising your clients on post-discharge liabilities; report on the ABI Consumer Commission’s Chapter 7 Committee.

This program will explore (i) how courts have implemented recent rules dealing with e-discovery; (ii) TAR and other software tools to manage e-discovery; and (iii) unique e-discovery issues in bankruptcy cases and adversary proceedings.

How Clear is “Free and Clear” under § 363? You’re a Real Character: When Can Debt Be Recharacterized as Equity? How Can I Get a One of Those: A Third Party Release? A panel discussion of lawyers with more than 100 years of bankruptcy experience, moderated by a bankruptcy judge who used to be a corporate lawyer. The panel will discuss recent court decisions and focus on unique issues that can arise when a debtor seeks to sell estate property “free and clear,” including whether § 363 can be used to sell real property free of an otherwise valid lease, the debate over whether and under what circumstances a bankruptcy court may rule that a facially valid loan is really subordinated equity, and whether post-Stern bankruptcy courts have the authority to grant releases to non-debtors and, if so, under what conditions.

Will the challenges facing restaurants--significant increases in the cost of labor, the pressure to invest in and provide e-commerce offerings, higher debt loads, investor return expectations—tilt the industry towards an increase in bankruptcies? Are restaurants slated to follow the path of general retailers, which, according to an analysis by BankruptcyData, have experienced a 35% YTD increase in bankruptcies? If so, what restructuring options are available either out of court or in Chapter 11? This webinar will explore these questions, along with key legal and investment banking issues.