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A Sea Change In Creditor Priorities, Kristen Van De Biezenbos
A Sea Change In Creditor Priorities, Kristen Van De Biezenbos
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Article argues that the operation of maritime law undermines a primary justification for creditor priorities under U.S. law. Under current law, when a debtor becomes insolvent, its secured creditors will be paid the full amount of their debt to the extent of their security interest, even if that leaves nothing to pay unsecured creditors. This is controversial with respect to involuntary unsecured creditors, particularly those with tort claims against the debtor. Defenders of this scheme of priorities have argued that allowing greater priority to involuntary creditors would hinder the availability or increase the cost of credit. However, involuntary creditors …
Death And Resurrection Of Secured Credit, James J. White
Death And Resurrection Of Secured Credit, James J. White
Articles
The Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978 (the Code) posed palpable threats to secured creditors. It was drafted by a commission that was at least as concerned with the rights of debtors as with the rights of creditors. It was modified and adopted by a Congress that might have been the most liberal since World War II and signed into law by President Carter at the apogee of the left's power, two years before the Reagan election that marked the rise of the right and the beginning of the left's decline. The power of the left was exerted most forcefully on …
Chuck And Steve's Peccadillo (Symposium: Threats To Secured Lending And Asset Securitization), James J. White
Chuck And Steve's Peccadillo (Symposium: Threats To Secured Lending And Asset Securitization), James J. White
Articles
Are investors in securitized receivables to be treated as the owners of an asset whose sale has taken it beyond the reach of the trustee in bankruptcy of their sellers? O are they to be treated as holders of a security interest in the transferred asset who have left behind an interest in the sellers' hands that would cause the asset to be subject to claims and interference by the sellers' grasping trustee? By adopting contrasting-arguably conflicting-statements in two subsections of a single section, the drafters of 1999 Article 9 have thrust this issue in the faces of courts and …
The Slippery Slope To Bankruptcy - Should Some Claimants Get A 'Carve-Out' From Secured Credit? No: It's A Populist Craving For A Petit Bourgeois Valhalla, James J. White
Articles
In 1996, Professor Elizabeth Warren made a proposal to the American Law Institute and the Drafting Committee for Article 9 for a “20 percent set aside” for unsecured claimants. As I understand it, her proposal would amend Section 9-301 of Article 9 (the section that now implicitly subordinates a lien creditor to a prior perfected secured creditor).
Work And Play In Revising Article 9 (Symposium On The Revision Of Article 9 Of The Uniform Commercial Code), James J. White
Work And Play In Revising Article 9 (Symposium On The Revision Of Article 9 Of The Uniform Commercial Code), James J. White
Articles
For Professors Harris and Mooney the time has come to distinguish between work and play. Debating whether security is efficient is play. Revising Article 9 is work. Even Professor Schwartz does not argue for the abolition of Article 9; he merely reiterates the "puzzle" of secured credit and argues in his playful fashion that security might not be efficient.' Were it not for the fact that this debate might give us some insights about certain priority rules (such as those having to do with purchase money), it would be pure intellectual masturbation, a game with no purpose other than to …
Revising Article 9 To Reduce Wasteful Litigation, James J. White
Revising Article 9 To Reduce Wasteful Litigation, James J. White
Articles
For reasons that are unclear to me, the committees reviewing the articles of the Uniform Commercial Code and drafting revisions are congenitally conservative. Perhaps these committees take their charge too seriously, namely, to revise, not to revolutionize. Perhaps their intimate knowledge of the subject matter exaggerates the importance of each section and consequently magnifies the apparent size of every change. In any case, my own experience with two such committees tells me that the members quickly become focused on revisions and amendments that any outsider would describe as modest. To the extent that the revision of any of the articles …
Standards For Insecurity Acceleration Under Section 1-208 Of The Uniform Commercial Code: A Proposal For Reform, Darlene M. Nowak
Standards For Insecurity Acceleration Under Section 1-208 Of The Uniform Commercial Code: A Proposal For Reform, Darlene M. Nowak
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This article examines in Part I how insecurity clauses function under the common law and the U.C.C .. Part II discusses the areas of controversy under section 1-208, the definition of good faith, the need for notice to the debtor, and the debtor's burden of proof. The article will evaluate the need for substantive reform in each area of controversy. A two-tier test of the creditor's insecurity is proposed wherein although the creditor has no responsibility to check the truth of his information, he may accelerate only if the information is true and is such as to make a reasonable …
The Federal Priority In Insolvency: Proposals For Reform, William T. Plumb Jr.
The Federal Priority In Insolvency: Proposals For Reform, William T. Plumb Jr.
Michigan Law Review
In 1970, the ABA approved a revised version of its insolvency priority recommendation which is now before the Senate Judiciary Committee as S. 2197, having been introduced by Senator Quentin N. Burdick. "by request," for the purpose of inviting public comment. The suggestions and criticisms made in the following analysis of the proposal are meant to detract nothing from the great desirability of the reform, for which I have worked for many years, but are intended to facilitate the kind of accommodation to the legitimate interests of the Government that ultimately paved the way for the adoption of the Federal …
Preferential Transfers On The Eve Of The Bankruptcy Amendments, Richard M. Kohn
Preferential Transfers On The Eve Of The Bankruptcy Amendments, Richard M. Kohn
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
While secured lenders may have been content to ride the crest of judicial legislation, the only permanent solution to the problem lie in amending either the Bankruptcy Act, the Uniform Commercial Code, or both. This at least is the view taken by the National Bankruptcy Conference's Committee on Coordination of the Uniform Commercial Code and Bankruptcy Act. Since its first meeting in June 1966, the Committee has focused its attention primarily upon the validity, in bankruptcy proceedings, of Article 9 security interests in after-acquired property. In September 1967, the Committee submitted to the Bankruptcy Conference its first draft of a …