2024

In Partnership with Epiq Year-over-year bankruptcy filings continued to show double-digit increases across nearly all chapters for the first six months of 2024. Join ABI and statistical partner Epiq Bankruptcy Analytics for a special abiLIVE webinar featuring experts who will break down the consumer and business filing trends that emerged in the first half of 2024, and offer their predictions on what might unfold over the remainder of the year.

This panel will introduce attendees to subchapter V of chapter 11, and its streamlined process for small business reorganizations. The panelists will cover the expectations, roles and responsibilities of the key participants in the subchapter V case, including the bankruptcy judge, debtors, creditors, the U.S. Trustee and the subchapter V trustee. The panelists also will compare and contrast subchapter V with a regular chapter 11 case in such key areas as eligibility of the debtor for subchapter V, first-day motions, cash-collateral usage, adequate protection, the role of the subchapter V trustee, plan formulation, consensual vs. cramdown plans, and the reorganized debtor’s responsibilities post-confirmation.

This panel will explore the basics of credit reporting, what to do when errors occur, and how to obtain a potential resolution. As part of this dialogue, the panelists will discuss relevant aspects of the Fair Credit Reporting Act and Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the discharge injunction, and jurisdictional issues that may impact litigation of these disputes.

Some things in life are crystal clear; others are amorphous. When your client is untruthful during the bankruptcy process, you, as counsel, must do certain things. This panel will identify the relevant Bar rules, codes of professional conduct, Bankruptcy Code sections, Bankruptcy Rules and other authorities that will help practitioners identify troublesome situations and implement solutions.

This panel will help you analyze the strategic twists and turns of taking bankruptcy appeals. When can you appeal? When should you? And if you have a choice of appellate courts (district court, BAP, court of appeals), how do you decide which to select? The panelists will share from their collective experience on both sides of the bench, including best practices — and perhaps a horror story or two.

The panel will discuss legal and practical issues arising out of bank failures. Following a brief overview of precipitating factors in recent bank failures, the panelists will discuss the legal framework for bank liquidations through FDIC receiverships, including their effects on deposit customers and borrowers. While banks are liquidated by the FDIC, related entities, such as bank holding companies, often look to bankruptcy courts to address their issues. The panelists will discuss the issues that arise with bank holding company bankruptcies, including key bankruptcy provisions and their interplay with the FDIC liquidation.

This panel will interactively explore the current legislative context of subchapter V, measures and strategies for its success, impediments to its broader use, bad faith or improper purposes, current developments, and what might need to be fixed.

This panel will discuss how to develop litigation skills in the production, limitation and introduction of testimonial and documentary evidence. The panelists will cover strategies for both introducing evidence and dealing with objections to or limitations on an opponent’s evidence.

This panel will help you gain a better perspective on the ways in which corporate directors’ duties morph when a company begins to experience distress. What changes should you be making, through what lens will you analyze past board dealings, and how might you provide revised governance controls to best guide the entity going forward? The panelists will provide their expertise into the pitfalls and practices of governing in the zone of insolvency, and will examine the empirical research regarding outcomes at times like these.

What is a “good faith” bankruptcy filing after LTL? Is there a “good faith” requirement at all, and is it subjective or objective? How much financial distress is necessary (if any), and how can a debtor know when it gets there? What lessons should smaller debtors take from large mass tort cases? Is there really a split in the circuits on these issues? Join this ABI/IWIRC panel for a lively and interactive discussion of good-faith (and bad-faith) filings.