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Is an insolvent debtor’s pre-bankruptcy termination of a commercial lease a fraudulent transfer? The Third Circuit said no when it held that a lessor’s pre-bankruptcy termination of the debtors’ lease and purchase option “was not a transfer under Bankruptcy Code §548(a)(1)(B).” In re Pazzo Pazzo Inc., 2022 WL 17690158 (3d Cir. Dec. 15, 2022). But the Seventh Circuit held that a Chapter 11 debtor’s pre-bankruptcy “surrender of [two] … leases to [its landlord] could be regarded as a preferential [or fraudulent] transfer.” In re Great Lakes Quick Lube L.P., 816 F.3d 482 (7th Cir. 2016). Reversing the bankruptcy court’s holding that “the terminations were [not] transfers, … preferential or fraudulent,” the Seventh Circuit stressed that the debtor’s termination of its “interest in property — … the leaseholds — which it parted with by transferring that interest to [the landlord],” fell within the broad definition of “transfer” in the Bankruptcy Code (Code). Id. at 485. A close reading of both Pazzo and Great Lakes, however, shows that the circuits are not split, and that the reasoning of both courts can be reconciled on their facts.
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Delaware District Court Could Guide Supreme Court Purdue Pharma Decision
By Michael L. Cook
A bankruptcy court properly held that derivative claims based on “piercing the corporate veil theory of liability [were] released under” a confirmed reorganization plan, but that direct “claims for negligent undertaking” were not released and “could be asserted” in state court against the debtors’ equity sponsors.
Court Caps Landlord's Bankruptcy Claim Against Lease Guarantor
By Andrew C. Kassner and Joseph N. Argentina Jr.
A big issue in real estate and retail bankruptcies, among others, involves the disposition of commercial real estate leases, given the potential magnitude of landlord damage claims under state law resulting from a tenant’s default under a long-term lease.
Delaware Bankruptcy Court Rejects Equity Holder's Challenge to Revoke Confirmation Order
By Lawrence J. Kotler
The equity owner asserted that the confirmation order previously entered by the court should be revoked based on the equity owner’s claim that value was lost due to improper sale and marketing efforts by the debtors and its professionals both pre- and post-bankruptcy and, as such, they should have been “in the money” and entitled to a distribution under the confirmed plan.
By George Williams
One of the major catalysts of the “Crypto Winter” that began in 2022 was the collapse of Terraform Labs’s native token LUNA in May 2022. Now two years and a dozen crypto-related bankruptcies later, Terraform Labs has filed for Chapter 11 protection.