Mayer Brown partners Tyler R. Ferguson, Aaron Gavant, and Sean T. Scott and associate Samuel R. Rabuck recently published an article for Mayer Brown’s Perspectives & Events portal on the January 13, 2022, decision in which Judge David Novak of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia vacated the bankruptcy court’s order
The Wall Street Journal reports on the surprise Thursday announcement from the U.S. Commerce Department that the U.S. gross domestic product unexpectedly shrank at a 1.4% annualized rate during the first quarter of 2022. The WSJ does not expect the GDP report to alter the Federal Reserve’s plan to raise interest rates this year, including
Recapping 2021, Bloomberg reported that last year saw the fewest annual bankruptcy filings in nearly four decades, falling 24% from 2020. A total of 3,596 chapter 11 cases were filed in 2021, about 3,000 fewer than the year before. The stimulus funds and easy access to liquidity combined with debt forbearance were pointed as the
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
On March 10, 2021, the parent company of sports club and gym-operator Town Sports International, LLC, filed a motion seeking to set aside a purported $250,000 settlement agreement between Town Sports and the New York Attorney General arguing that the agreement (1) was barred by the terms of Town Sports’ confirmed chapter 11 plan and (2) in any case, not authorized by Town Sports but instead only by one of its prior attorneys.
As noted in our prior post on the case, Town Sports has been embroiled in litigation with the New York Attorney General since September 2020, when the attorney general’s office filed a lawsuit against Town Sports arguing that it improperly failed to honor certain of its members’ cancellation requests, and instead continued to assess monthly membership fees, during the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and related government shutdown orders. The parties appeared to have settled their lawsuit on March 4, 2021, when a New York state court
Continue Reading Settled or Not? Town Sports Challenges Settlement it Purportedly Entered into with New York Attorney General
Two recent decisions from Delaware illustrate somewhat divergent views from the bankruptcy bench on the proper procedures for obtaining non-debtor releases in confirmed plans of reorganization. In both In re Emerge Energy Services LP, et al.1 and In re Cloud Peak Energy Inc., et al.2 the debtors’ initial, and then certain subsequent, efforts at plan confirmation were stymied by proposed opt-out procedures. Ultimately, both debtors were able to confirm their plans after adjusting the applicable release provisions, as described below. Collectively, these decisions demonstrate how closely many courts will scrutinize non-debtor releases and the importance of designing procedures for obtaining consent to such releases that demonstrate that they are procedurally fair.
Continue Reading Recent Delaware Decisions Show Divergent Views on Third-Party Release Procedures
Law360 reports that Bar Louie secured approval for its sale procedures on Thursday, February 27, 2020. Judge Mary Walrath of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware approved the sale procedures after cutting the stalking horse bidder’s breakup fee by $1.4 million and eliminating a 1% reimbursement fee intended to be paid
On December 19, 2019, the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held in In re Millennium Lab Holdings II, LLC1 that bankruptcy courts have the constitutional authority, well within the constraints of Stern v. Marshall,2 to confirm Chapter 11 reorganization plans containing nonconsensual third-party releases. This decision is notable not only because it is the first federal circuit court of appeals decision addressing (and overruling) a Stern challenge to a bankruptcy court’s authority to approve such releases but also because it was issued in a circuit where the ability of a plan to otherwise provide for nonconsensual releases of third-party claims is already generally recognized.3
Continue Reading Third Circuit Holds Bankruptcy Courts May Constitutionally Confirm a Chapter 11 Plan Containing Nonconsensual Third-Party Releases
The question of whether a debtor’s plan of reorganization can include non-consensual releases for non-debtor parties has been hotly contested for several years, with circuit courts oftentimes split. In his recent decision on the topic in the Aegean case, New York Southern District Bankruptcy Judge Michael E. Wiles explored the limitations on such releases even