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Articles 1 - 30 of 32
Full-Text Articles in Law
Punishing Debtors In Bankruptcy During Covid-19, David Y. Kamins
Punishing Debtors In Bankruptcy During Covid-19, David Y. Kamins
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
The 2019 Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) led to widespread government-mandated lockdowns, causing numerous businesses to close their doors permanently. To assist financially distressed businesses and individuals during the pandemic, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act). The Small Business Administration (SBA)—the agency tasked with implementing the CARES Act—distributed funds to individuals and businesses through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Part of the SBA’s eligibility requirements to receive funding through the PPP included an exclusion provision that barred debtors presently involved in any bankruptcy proceeding from receiving any PPP funding. Many debtors in bankruptcy filed suits in …
Commercial Law Harmonization: The Past As Prologue—A “Festschrift” In Honor Of Neil B. Cohen, Edward J. Janger
Commercial Law Harmonization: The Past As Prologue—A “Festschrift” In Honor Of Neil B. Cohen, Edward J. Janger
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
No abstract provided.
Formulating Lists Of Factors: Lessons From The Good, The Bad, And The U.C.C., Stephen L. Sepinuck
Formulating Lists Of Factors: Lessons From The Good, The Bad, And The U.C.C., Stephen L. Sepinuck
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
No abstract provided.
Reviving The Realist Restatements And The Common Law Codes: Neil Cohen And The Grand Style, Edward J. Janger
Reviving The Realist Restatements And The Common Law Codes: Neil Cohen And The Grand Style, Edward J. Janger
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
The “Second” Restatements and the Uniform Commercial Code have shaped the sensibility of lawyers and law students for the last half century. Both projects were anti-formal at their core, articulating pragmatic principles to guide judicial decision making without necessarily determining the outcome. Recent jurisprudence interpreting the Restatements, as well as efforts to update both sets of instruments, have taken a formalist turn. As examples, this essay will consider judicial interpretations of § 402A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts where internet platforms like Amazon are involved. Then it will consider the tortured and recently concluded experience in connection with the …
Looking Forward: Professor Roberta Karmel’S Prescient Views On The Transformation Of Self-Regulatory Organizations And Of The Securities Market Structure At The Turn Of The Last Century, James A. Fanto
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
This essay examines Professor Roberta Karmel’s scholarship on the transformation of self-regulatory organizations (SROs) and the securities market structure, a transformation that occurred at the turn of the last century. It explains how she examined the events from the perspective of a lawyer who had a rich knowledge of the history of the SROs, the securities markets, and their regulation and how she provided a practical understanding of the way these markets worked. It points out that, rather than offering an overarching theory that would explain all of these developments and that would guide regulators and legislators in SRO and …
Telling The Story On Your Timesheets: A Fee Examiner's Tips For Creditors' Lawyers And Bankruptcy Estate Professionals, Nancy B. Rapoport
Telling The Story On Your Timesheets: A Fee Examiner's Tips For Creditors' Lawyers And Bankruptcy Estate Professionals, Nancy B. Rapoport
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
This short (approx. 5,000 words) essay, which forms the basis of a keynote address to the Federal Bar Association that I’m doing next month, discusses how much of a lawyer’s embedded assumptions and cognitive errors can come across in something as simple as a time entry on a bill. So much can be revealed about how a lawyer views himself or herself in society and about the lawyer’s relationship with the client that it’s worth examining what we can find when we look at legal bills. One note, though: my writing style is informal and distinctive in that regard (especially …
A Rejection Of Absolutist Duties As A Barrier To Creditor Protection: Facilitating Directorial Decisivness Surrounding Insolvency Through The Business Judgment Rule, Philip Gavin
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
This Article draws attention to the difficulties that directors may face when seeking to discharge their duties as a corporation approaches insolvency, in particular when directors must discern the point at which a corporation has become insolvent. It argues that discretion allowed to directors by the business judgment rule will be crucial to overcoming these difficulties. To do this, this article examines the nature of duties owed by directors both before and after insolvency, and accepts the stance taken by Delaware courts in recent years towards an expansive understanding of a corporation’s interests upon insolvency. It then considers unresolved issues …
Symposium: Consumer Welfare Market Structure And Political Power, Edward J. Janger
Symposium: Consumer Welfare Market Structure And Political Power, Edward J. Janger
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
Two competing visions dominate the fields of antitrust and consumer protection: neo-liberal and progressive. The neo-classical approach is associated with Robert Bork and the Law and Economics Movement. The progressive strand is older, identified with Brandeis and early 20th Century social reform. As a matter of chronology the Brandeisian view dominated into the 1970s, but from 1980, until recently, the Borkian law and economics approach has been in ascendancy in Congress, the academy, and in the courts. Technological change and events in the broader economy have caused the politics and the academic focus to shift. The financial crisis of 2008-09 …
Consumers' Declining Power In The Fintech Auto Loan Market, Pamela Foohey
Consumers' Declining Power In The Fintech Auto Loan Market, Pamela Foohey
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
Automobiles have become part of America’s infrastructure. For most people, having access to a car is crucial to their livelihoods and they will take on significant amounts of debt to purchase vehicles. Auto debt is unlike any other consumer debt, both in its structure, which allows creditors to easily seize collateral, and in its lack of regulation. The unique and lucrative nature of auto debt has not gone unnoticed by lenders or by companies leveraging fintech to offer people new ways to purchase cars and car loans. This Article assesses the evolving marketplace for auto sales, leasing, and loans to …
Door Shut And Ears Plugged: How Consumer Reporting Casts Identity Theft Victims Out Of Financial Society And How The Law Can Be Harmonized To Bring Them Back In, Ryan Bolger
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
Consumer Reporting Agencies (CRAs) are the gatekeepers to the American economy. As the chief informants for prospective lenders, landlords, and employers, they exert immense power over the day-to-day decisions of who gets what. Despite these high stakes, the CRAs run consumer reporting as an automated electronic process that causes a lot of reporting errors, disqualifying consumers from essential goods, services, and opportunities. This is painfully true in the context of identity theft, where perverse incentives pollute the integrity of consumer reporting, piling undue harm onto identity theft victims. The law provides a remedy for this problem, but circuit courts are …
Revising The Debt Limit For “Small Business Debtors”: The Legislative Half-Measure Of The Small Business Reorganization Act, Michael C. Blackmon
Revising The Debt Limit For “Small Business Debtors”: The Legislative Half-Measure Of The Small Business Reorganization Act, Michael C. Blackmon
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
Bankruptcy law changed drastically in 2019 with the passage of several bills. This Note will examine two of them. First, the Family Farmer Relief Act of 2019 raised the debt limit of the family farmer from $4,411,400 to $10,000,000. This enables more financially distressed family farmers to be eligible for Chapter 12 relief, a reorganizational tool designed for farmers. Second, the Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019 created Subchapter V – Small Business Debtor Reorganization in Chapter 11. This new Subchapter streamlined the reorganization process for small business debtors by removing roadblocks which often derail a reorganization of a small …
“Fair Enough”? Revising The Yellowstone Injunction To Fit New York’S Commercial Leasing Landscape And Promote Judicial Economy, Gabriel W. Block
“Fair Enough”? Revising The Yellowstone Injunction To Fit New York’S Commercial Leasing Landscape And Promote Judicial Economy, Gabriel W. Block
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
The Yellowstone injunction is an equitable remedy that tolls any applicable cure period and gives tenants a better opportunity to maintain their leasehold when they have defaulted under their lease. The remedy is available to commercial tenants in New York City and to commercial and residential tenants throughout the State. This Note examines the Yellowstone injunction in the context of New York City’s commercial tenants, who employ it most frequently and benefit most from its protections. This Note examines the development and application of the Yellowstone injunction and proposes changing the doctrine to exclude cases of monetary defaults and expired …
Between Scylla And Charybdis: Maritime Liens And The Bankruptcy Code, Ian T. Kitts
Between Scylla And Charybdis: Maritime Liens And The Bankruptcy Code, Ian T. Kitts
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
Federal courts have had trouble fitting maritime law into the bankruptcy scheme created by the Bankruptcy Code (the Code). Particularly troublesome have been vessel-arrest proceedings that are underway when the vessel’s owner files for bankruptcy. Prior to the enactment of the Code, courts applied the doctrine of custodia legis to decide whether the admiralty or the bankruptcy court would administer the vessel. Since the Code was enacted, courts have generally held that the bankruptcy court gained control. A recent Ninth Circuit decision, however, split with other circuits and seems to have revived custodia legis. This Note argues that the Ninth …
The Market For Corporate Control In The Zone Of Insolvency: Symposium Introduction, Edward J. Janger
The Market For Corporate Control In The Zone Of Insolvency: Symposium Introduction, Edward J. Janger
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
No abstract provided.
Corporate Distress, Credit Default Swaps, And Defaults: Information And Traditional, Contingent, And Empty Creditors, Henry T. C. Hu
Corporate Distress, Credit Default Swaps, And Defaults: Information And Traditional, Contingent, And Empty Creditors, Henry T. C. Hu
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
Federal securities law seeks to ensure the quality and quantity of information that corporations make publicly available. Informational asymmetries associated with companies in financial distress, but not in bankruptcy, have received little attention. This Article explores some important asymmetries in this context that are curious in their origin, nature, and impact. The asymmetries are especially curious because of the impact of a world with credit default swaps (CDS) and CDS-driven debt “decoupling.” The Article explores two categories of asymmetries. The first relates to information on the company itself. Here, the Article suggests there is fresh evidence for the belief that …
Transparency In Corporate Groups, Jay Lawrence Westbrook
Transparency In Corporate Groups, Jay Lawrence Westbrook
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
This Article addresses a remarkable blind spot in American law: the failure to apply the well-established principles of secured credit to prevent inefficiency, confusion, and fraud in the manipulation of the webs of subsidiaries within corporate groups. In particular, “asset partitioning” has been a fashionable subject in which the central problem of non-transparency has been often mentioned but little addressed. This Article offers a concept for a new system of corporate disclosure for the benefit of creditors and other stakeholders. It would require disclosure of corporate structures and allocations of assets among affiliates to the extent the affiliates are to …
Insider Trading: Are Insolvent Firms Different?, Andrew Verstein
Insider Trading: Are Insolvent Firms Different?, Andrew Verstein
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
Federal law restricts insider trading. Yet these restrictions operate differently on insolvent or bankrupt firms. The law is more constraining in some respects: federal law extensively regulates the trading of residual claims in solvent firms but not insolvent firms. However, the law is more constraining in other respects: insider trading law does little to limit debt-trading at solvent firms, but a bankruptcy enmeshes all creditors in a web of insider trading rules. This Article identifies insolvency’s economic and legal influence on insider trading law and then normatively evaluates this transformation.
Bankruptcy Fiduciary Duties In The World Of Claims Trading, John A. E. Pottow
Bankruptcy Fiduciary Duties In The World Of Claims Trading, John A. E. Pottow
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
In earlier work, I explored the role of fiduciary duties in the bankruptcy trustee’s administration of a debtor’s estate, noting the absence of any explicit demarcation of those duties in the Bankruptcy Code. In this piece, I report the highlights of that analysis and see to what extent (if any) fiduciary duties can inform policy prescriptions for the issue of bankruptcy claims trading, colorfully referred to by some as the world of “bankruptcy M&A.” My initial take is pessimistic. Fiduciary duties, at least as traditionally conceived in bankruptcy, are unlikely to provide much help. But there is still a source …
Corporate Governance And Bankruptcy, Daniel J.H. Greenwood
Corporate Governance And Bankruptcy, Daniel J.H. Greenwood
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
Ordinary corporate law invests enormous authority in corporate leaders, largely without accountability either to those they govern or to the judiciary, in defiance of much of what we know about effective governance procedure. Instead, we rely on the markets in which the corporation participates as the primary check on incumbent officials. Regardless of whether relying on markets is sufficient in the ordinary course, corporate insolvency is the markets’ verdict that incumbent management has failed. Accordingly, in bankruptcy and insolvency more generally, the law ought to abandon its ordinary deference to the corporate powers that be and instead impose standard good …
Private Benefits Without Control? Modern Chapter 11 And The Market For Corporate Control, Oscar Couwenberg, Stephen J. Lubben
Private Benefits Without Control? Modern Chapter 11 And The Market For Corporate Control, Oscar Couwenberg, Stephen J. Lubben
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
Outside of bankruptcy, a board of directors’ decision to take control rights away from existing shareholders and grant them to another is subject to heightened fiduciary duties. As the sale of control represents a kind of end game, shareholders have one last chance to realize the full value for their investment. In such a context, their interests warrant special protection. A similar sale of control can happen in a chapter 11 procedure when a bankruptcy plan revamps the capital structure of the firm. In such a restructuring of the firm, control rights can be newly created, redefined and redistributed to …
Badges Of Opportunism: Principles For Policing Restructuring Support Agreements, Edward J. Janger, Adam J. Levitin
Badges Of Opportunism: Principles For Policing Restructuring Support Agreements, Edward J. Janger, Adam J. Levitin
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
Bankruptcy is a market for corporate control. Current bankruptcy practice offers two alternative mechanisms for effectuating changes in control of a firm: (1) a pre-plan all-asset sale under section 363(b) of the Bankruptcy Code; or (2) an asset sale or recapitalization pursuant to a plan of reorganization under section 1129 of the Code. Pre-plan sales under section 363(b) are fast, but lack the procedural protections associated with a restructuring or sale pursuant to a plan. Plan confirmation can be costly and uncertain, however. Restructuring support agreements (“RSAs”)—contractual agreements to support a future restructuring that has certain agreed-upon characteristics—appear to offer …
The Devious Debtor: 11 U.S.C. § 523(A)(2)(B) And The Need For A More Equitable Outcome, Torie Levine
The Devious Debtor: 11 U.S.C. § 523(A)(2)(B) And The Need For A More Equitable Outcome, Torie Levine
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
Section 523(a)(2)(A) of the Bankruptcy Code prohibits debtors from discharging debts for money, property, services, or credit obtained by false pretenses, a false representation, or actual fraud other than a statement respecting the debtor’s financial condition. Under § 523(a)(2)(B), if those debts are obtained by a statement respecting the debtor’s financial condition, then the statement must be in writing for the debt to be discharged. A conflict among the circuit courts arose as to whether a statement about a single asset can be a statement respecting the debtor’s financial condition. The majority of the courts applied a narrow interpretation to …
Backstop, Not Bailout: The Case For Preserving The Orderly Liquidation Authority Under Dodd-Frank, Mark R. Maciuch
Backstop, Not Bailout: The Case For Preserving The Orderly Liquidation Authority Under Dodd-Frank, Mark R. Maciuch
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
The Trump Administration and Republicans have initiated efforts to repeal certain provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank), one of which is the Orderly Liquidation Authority (OLA) under Title II of Dodd-Frank. Critics of the OLA argue that it enables, rather than prevents, future bailouts funded by taxpayers. These critics are concerned with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s (FDIC) discretion to decide when and how to resolve distressed financial firms, as well as the FDIC’s access to large amounts of funds from the U.S. Department of the Treasury to carry out these functions. Proponents of …
The Husky Case: Fraud, Bankruptcy, And Veil Piercing, Harvey Gelb
The Husky Case: Fraud, Bankruptcy, And Veil Piercing, Harvey Gelb
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
A recent Supreme Court decision, Husky International Electronics, Inc. v. Ritz, explores the meaning of the word “fraud” under a federal bankruptcy statutory section. That section uses the term “actual fraud,” and bears upon the question of whether a particular debt should be denied a discharge. The Court’s approach in defining fraud affords guidance to the question of defining fraud under other statutes. The Husky case also raised a veil piercing issue to be dealt with on remand. That issue involved the application of Texas statutory law precluding veil piercing in cases brought by contract creditors unless they were victims …
Sovereign Debt Restructuring And English Governing Law, Steven L. Schwarcz
Sovereign Debt Restructuring And English Governing Law, Steven L. Schwarcz
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
The problem of sovereign indebtedness is becoming a worldwide crisis because nations, unlike individuals and corporations, lack access to bankruptcy laws to restructure unsustainable debt. Decades of international efforts to solve this problem through contracting and attempted treaty-making have failed to provide an adequate debt-restructuring framework. A significant amount of outstanding sovereign debt is governed, however, by English law. This Article argues that the U.K. Parliament has the extraordinary power to help solve the problem of unsustainable country debt by changing English law to facilitate fair and consensual debt restructuring. This Article also proposes modifications to English law that Parliament …
Promesa And The Bankruptcy Clause: A Reminder About Uniformity, Stephen J. Lubben
Promesa And The Bankruptcy Clause: A Reminder About Uniformity, Stephen J. Lubben
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
The Bankruptcy Clause—Article I, Section 8, Clause 4—provides that “The Congress shall have power . . . [t]o establish . . . uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States . . . .”[1] But Congress has just enacted a bankruptcy law that applies to a single American territory. In early May 2017, Puerto Rico and one affiliated entity filed a petition under this new law. In late May, the Employees Retirement System commenced a case, along with the Puerto Rico Highway and Transportation Authority. Other Puerto Rican sub-entities are expected to follow. I use this short …
Decision-Making And The Shaky Property Foundations Of Municipal Bankruptcy Law, Juliet M. Moringiello
Decision-Making And The Shaky Property Foundations Of Municipal Bankruptcy Law, Juliet M. Moringiello
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
Municipal bankruptcies are unpredictable. There are several reasons for this statement— municipal bankruptcies are rare, involvement of the state itself in the process varies according to the governing state law, and chapter 9, the Bankruptcy Code chapter governing the municipal bankruptcy process, has many gaps. Congress constructed the modern chapter 9 on a foundation of corporate bankruptcy law, a foundation whose roots—corporate finance—are significantly different from the rules governing municipal finance. In this Article, Professor Moringiello aims a spotlight on the property roots of private bankruptcy law and compares them to the promissory and statutory roots of municipal finance law …
Towards A Jurisprudence Of Public Law Bankruptcy Judging, Edward J. Janger
Towards A Jurisprudence Of Public Law Bankruptcy Judging, Edward J. Janger
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
In this essay Professor Janger considers the role of bankruptcy judges in Chapter 9 cases in light of the scholarly literature on public law judging. He explores the extent to which bankruptcy judges engaged in the fiscal restructuring of a municipality use tools, and face constraints, similar to those utilized by federal district court judges in structural reform cases, where constitutional norms are at issue.
Understanding Wellness International Network, Ltd. V. Sharif: The Problems With Allowing Parties To Impliedly Consent To Bankruptcy Court Adjudication Of Stern Claims, Elizabeth Jackson
Understanding Wellness International Network, Ltd. V. Sharif: The Problems With Allowing Parties To Impliedly Consent To Bankruptcy Court Adjudication Of Stern Claims, Elizabeth Jackson
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
The 2011 Supreme Court case Stern v. Marshall defined which claims bankruptcy courts had the authority to adjudicate, but it’s complicated holding left lower courts perplexed. Specifically, the Stern decision created “Stern claims”—claims that bankruptcy courts have the statutory, but not the constitutional, authority to adjudicate. Subsequent cases, such as Executive Benefits Insurance Agency v. Arkison and Wellness International Network, Ltd. v. Sharif, have grappled with whether Stern claims should be treated as “core” claims, which bankruptcy courts can enter final judgments on, or “non-core” claims, which bankruptcy courts can only enter final judgments on if the litigating parties consent. …
Bankruptcy: Where Attorneys Can Lose Big Even If They Win Big, Stanislav Veyber
Bankruptcy: Where Attorneys Can Lose Big Even If They Win Big, Stanislav Veyber
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
Historically, bankruptcy attorneys received the short end of the stick and were paid less for their services than attorneys in other fields of law. With the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978, Congress attempted to reduce the discrepancy in compensation. However, after the Supreme Court’s decision in Baker Botts v. ASARCO; L.L.C., the playing field remains unequal for bankruptcy attorneys. Following this decision, if a debtor disputes their attorney’s fee application, attorneys are at a disadvantage and cannot recover fees for defending their fee application. As a result, bankruptcy attorneys take an effective pay cut if they are faced with a …