Business Law Insolvency Law Committee

In Reznick v. UST (In re DA & AR Hospice Care, Inc.) 2023 WL 6939858 (9th Cir. BAP 10/20/23), the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the Ninth Circuit ("BAP") held that debtor’s attorney in a corporate Chapter 11 case filed the bankruptcy in bad faith, committed fraud on the court, and violated Rule 11. Read more

In Trinity Financial Services, LLC v. Treadwell, 2023 WL 7107283 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 27, 2023), the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (“District Court”) held that the Chapter 13 creditor’s actions, after it learned of its avoided lien, did not meet the standard for seeking relief under Rule 60 for excusable neglect. Read more

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals (the Court) ruled that a debtor who successfully fended off a motion to dismiss her bankruptcy case for abuse under 11 U.S.C. § 707(b) was not entitled to recover the attorney’s fees incurred in defense of the motion under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) because the motion was not a “civil action”. Read more

The United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin (the Court) declined to allow a chapter 13 debtor to cure a prepetition arrearage on a house which had been owned by the debtor’s parents.  Read more

The Ninth Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel (the BAP) recently ruled in a published opinion that a chapter 13 debtor may not sell co-owned property free and clear of debt secured by which the nondebtor’s interest in the property. In re Groves, 652 B.R. 104 (B.A.P. 9th Cir. 2023). Read more

On March 28, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona affirmed a bankruptcy court’s decision to allocate sale proceeds pro rata between the tax-and-interest component and the penalty component of a tax lien avoided under Bankruptcy Code § 724(a). Matter of Freeman, No. 3:20-BK-10338-DPC, 2023 WL 2665735 (D. Ariz. Mar. 28, 2023). Read more

United States Supreme Court held that Congress unambiguously abrogated tribal sovereign immunity in the Bankruptcy Code because federally recognized Indian tribes are covered under the Code’s definition of a “governmental unit.”  Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians v. Coughlin, 143 S. Ct. 1689 (2023). Read more

In a published opinion arising from a Ponzi scheme bankruptcy case, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals (the Court) ruled that a transaction whereby a second factor paid off the first factor and received the accounts which were the first factor’s collateral property was not avoidable as a preferential or fraudulent transfer because it was not a transfer of “an interest of the debtor in property.”  Read more

In Medley, the United States Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the Ninth Circuit (“BAP”) affirmed the bankruptcy court’s decision that a factoring agreement created a loan in favor of Precision secured by the debtor’s real estate sales commissions, and that Precision was not a “factor” that owned the debtor’s right to receive the commission. Read more

The Ninth Circuit Bankruptcy Appellate Panel (“BAP”) affirmed a non-dischargeable judgment where the creditor did not receive notice of the bankruptcy in time to file a proof of claim in a chapter 7 asset case. Read more