Commercial And Regulatory Law Committee

“It’s like déjà vu all over again.”
— Yogi Berra

Everyone is feeling the impacts of the highest rate of inflation in decades, with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) still reporting a 8.3% year-over-year rate of inflation. Many pundits are blaming the impact of the Russian sanctions as a primary driver. This month, U.S. companies reporting earnings are repeating the same mantra.

“Digital assets, including cryptocurrencies, have seen explosive growth in recent years, surpassing a $3 trillion market cap last November and up from $14 billion just five years prior. Surveys suggest that around 16 percent of adult Americans — approximately 40 million people — have invested in, traded, or used cryptocurrencies.” — White House Fact Sheet.

Nonconsensual third-party releases in bankruptcy are the hot topic of debate recently. Even though there is no provision of the Bankruptcy Code that expressly authorizes these releases, no Code provision prohibits them, either.

Editor’s Note: The following article, “The Purchaser of a Tax Lien Is the Holder of a 'Tax Claim' Under 11 U.S.C. § 511(a),” won the prize for second place in the Seventh Annual ABI Bankruptcy Law Student Writing Competition. The author, Andrew Reardon, is a recent graduate of St. John’s University School of Law in Jamaica, N.Y. In addition to recognition and publication of his article in the Bankruptcy Taxation Committee Newsletter, Mr. Reardon receives a cash award of $1,250, sponsored by Jenner & Block LLP, and a one-year ABI membership.

An unsecured creditors’ committee is supposed to be representative of the interests of a diverse group of unsecured creditors with an interest in the outcome of a debtor’s reorganization or “fresh start.” Landlords with lease-rejection claims, parties to rejected equipment leases, trade creditors, unsecured bondholders and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation are a few examples.

Add the Western District of New York to those courts holding that in rem tax foreclosures are not presumed to provide reasonably equivalent value to a debtor. In Canandaigua Land Development LLC v. County of Ontario (In re Canandaigua Land Dev. LLC), 521 B.R. 457 (Bankr. W.D.N.Y.

Section 365 of the Bankruptcy Code authorizes a debtor to assume or reject an executory contract.[1] An executory contract that has expired in accordance with its terms is generally not subject to assumption or rejection under the Code.

Recently, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware had the opportunity to further clarify the power of § 363 sale processes to cleanse assets and the fragile nature of pension claims in bankruptcy. The court considered and rejected an objection to a § 363 sale free and clear of any successor liability claim where the sale was supported by the debtors, the lenders and the unsecured creditors’ committee, but not the pension trust.

Once disfavored, non-compete agreements — contractual provisions prohibiting employees from competing with their former employers upon the relationship’s termination — have acquired new legitimacy in recent decades.