Reporting from the Wall Street Journal indicates that plaintiffs in price fixing lawsuits against generic drugmaker Teligent Inc. have sought court authority to continue that litigation despite Teligent’s October bankruptcy filing. The litigation, which commenced in 2016, alleges that Teligent artificially inflated the costs of certain generic drugs and is being pursued primarily by attorneys
Hertz is making big news just months after emerging from its successful Chapter 11 bankruptcy. As reported by NBC News, Hertz has signed deals with Tesla (to add at least 100,000 Teslas to its fleet), Uber (to make up to half of those Teslas available to Uber drivers), and with Carvana (to sell its
Partially walking back her prior pronouncements suggesting that she would rule to the contrary (which we previously wrote about here), on October 13, 2021, District Court Judge Colleen McMahon denied the U.S. Trustee’s request for an emergency stay pending appeal of the Purdue Pharma confirmation order. In a related order issued three days earlier, Judge McMahon had noted that she “fully” intended to grant the stay request so long as she had jurisdiction to do so. In the end, however, the District Court was persuaded to deny the request based on the debtors’ agreement not to raise equitable mootness as a defense to the appeal and by the debtors’ commitment to provide 14 days’ advance notice of the plan going fully effective. The U.S. Trustee had argued that a stay was still required, notwithstanding these conditions, given the weightiness of the issues at stake and the potential for later equitable mootness-related issues. While sympathizing with this position, the District Court ultimately found that the U.S. Trustee had not shown a sufficient likelihood of any “concrete harm” that could arise between the date of the District Court’s ruling and the next-scheduled hearing on the nearly identical stay motion back in the Bankruptcy Court. The District Court nonetheless emphasized that it would “not allow this appeal to be equitably mooted” and if, at any time, “it appears that imminent action might lead to that result,” the movants were invited to “knock on [Judge McMahon’s] door.”
Continue Reading Stay and Direct Appeal Requests Denied in Purdue Pharma; District Court Commits to Shielding Case from Equitable Mootness Concerns
On October 10, 2021, Judge Colleen McMahon of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York entered a temporary restraining order, delaying implementation of Purdue Pharma’s plan of reorganization, which was confirmed by Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain on September 17th, pending argument on the U.S. Trustee’s motion for a stay pending appeal
In a somewhat unexpected development given his recent appointment to a second 14-year term a mere 5 years ago, Bankruptcy Judge Robert D. Drain of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York announced that he intends to retire as of June 30, 2022. Judge Drain has presided over many large, high-profile
Bloomberg Law discusses pending petitions for certiorari seeking the U.S. Supreme Court’s review of lower courts’ application of the “equitable mootness” doctrine, which places significant limits on dissenting parties ability to appeal from orders confirming Chapter 11 plans of reorganization. One such petition arises out of the Nuverra Environmental Solutions case, which we previously discussed
On September 1, 2021, Judge Robert Drain issued a much-anticipated oral ruling approving Purdue Pharma L.P.’s plan of reorganization. The plan, which has garnered significant attention from the media, legislators, academics, and practitioners, releases current and future members of the Sackler family and many of their associates and affiliated companies – none of whom filed for bankruptcy themselves – from liability in connection with any possible harm caused by OxyContin and other opioids that Purdue Pharma manufactured and distributed. In return for the liability releases, the Sacklers will, over a nine-year period, contribute up to $4.325 billion to a settlement fund from which payments will be made primarily to compensate victims and to fund initiatives to abate the opioid epidemic.
Continue Reading SDNY Bankruptcy Court OKs Purdue Pharma’s Plan of Reorganization Featuring Third-Party Releases for Sacklers in Exchange for Contributing $4.325 Billion to Opioid Victim Settlement Fund
The Wall Street Journal reports on Purdue Pharma’s continuing confirmation hearing covering the company’s proposed reorganization plan centered around a $4.5 billion settlement with its founders, the Sackler family. Currently, the Sackler family is named in civil litigation which alleges that the family knowingly fueled opioid addiction through the marketing of OxyContin, an opioid painkiller.
Mayer Brown Restructuring lawyers Lucy Kweskin and Tyler Ferguson recently published an article in Westlaw Today highlighting key bankruptcy trends in the first half of 2021, including recent court pushback on granting debtors “extraordinary” relief from rent obligations in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, lofty valuations placing equity holders in the money, and developments in
Fallout continues from the November 2020 bankruptcy sale of Town Sports’ assets to a new entity backed, in part, by an ad hoc group of Town Sports’ prepetition lenders. A separate group of prepetition lenders who did not participate in the sale filed suit in May against the ad hoc group and the administrative agent for the lender syndicate, alleging that ad hoc group’s actions had rendered the non-participating group’s secured loans “essentially worthless.”[1] The case, which is still in its early stages, demonstrates the importance of properly documenting a multi-party transaction and also provides another recent example of “lender on lender” violence.
Continue Reading Credit Bidding Gone Awry: Town Sports’ Prepetition Lenders Sue Each Other