Law Commons^™

Inside Safe Assets, Anna Gelpern, Erik F. Gerding

Publications

“Safe assets” is a catch-all term to describe financial contracts that market participants treat as if they were risk-free. These may include government debt, bank deposits, and asset-backed securities, among others. The International Monetary Fund estimated potential safe assets at more than $114 trillion worldwide in 2011, more than seven times the U.S. economic output that year.

To treat any contract as if it were risk-free seems delusional after apparently super-safe public and private debt markets collapsed overnight. Nonetheless, safe asset supply and demand have been invoked to explain shadow banking, financial crises, and prolonged economic stagnation. The economic literature …

Take This House And Shove It: The Emotional Drivers Of Strategic Default, Brent T. White

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Morality Of Strategic Default, Brent T. White

Publications

No abstract provided.

Underwater And Not Walking Away: Shame, Fear, And The Social Management Of The Housing Crisis, Brent T. White

Publications

No abstract provided.

Small Business Reorganization And The Sabre Proposals, Karen Gebbia

Publications

Many bankruptcy experts suspect that the substantial costs and hurdles of reorganizing under chapter 11 are especially burdensome for small businesses and may significantly impair small businesses' ability to reorganize and survive. It should not be surprising, then, that bankruptcy practitioners, scholars, and judges agonize over the treatment of small businesses in reorganization; conferences are organized to consider the particular problems of financially distressed small businesses; Congress singled out small businesses for attention in the 1994 Bankruptcy Code amendments; and the National Bankruptcy Review Commission recommended reforms applicable to small business reorganization cases.

Much of the debate concerning the treatment …

Interpreting The Bankruptcy Code: An Empirical Study Of The Supreme Court's Bankruptcy Decisions, Karen Gebbia

Publications

The Supreme Court has issued forty-eight bankruptcy decisionsin the two decades since the Bankruptcy Code became law. In at least thirty of these cases, the Supreme Court granted certiorari to mediate conflicts among the circuit courts of appeal.

This article studies the Court's interpretive methods. Studies of lower court bankruptcy decisions might also provide valuable information concerning interpretive method, particularly if such studies examine whether conflicting decisions arise from conflicting interpretive methods, whether appellate courts and bankruptcy courts apply divergent interpretive methods, and whether textual or non-textual decisions are more frequently overruled by higher courts or legislative action.

Bank Of America National Trust & Savings Ass'n V. 203 North Lasalle Street Partnership: A Different Interpretation, Karen Gebbia

Publications

The story of 203 North LaSalle Street is archetypical of real estate investments. A real estate investment partnership that had no other significant assets owned a substantial part of the 203 North LaSalle Street building, just as thousands of other real estate partnerships own thousands of other downtown office buildings across the United States. Like hundreds of other single asset real estate partnerships, the 203 North LaSalle Street Partnership fell upon financial hard times and filed a chapter 11 reorganization case to prevent the mortgagee from foreclosing on the building. As in many such cases, the financially decimated partners sought …

State Sovereign Immunity And The Bankruptcy Code (Part One), Karen Gebbia

Publications

This article is the first of a two-part series in which Professor Gebbia-Pinetti considers how the complexities of state sovereign immunity apply to bankruptcy actions. The present article lays the foundation by analyzing the source, scope, and nature of states' immunity from suits filed in federal court to enforce state and federal law. This includes a discussion of traditional sovereign immunity, Eleventh Amendment immunity, abrogation of immunity, and the Supreme Court's decision in Seminole Tribe v. Florida. The second article will consider the extent to which the bankruptcy estate may enforce Bankruptcy Code actions against the states, notwithstanding state sovereign …

State Sovereign Immunity And The Bankruptcy Code (Part Two), Karen Gebbia

Publications

This article is the second of a two-part series in which Professor Gebbia-Pinetti considers how the complexities of state sovereign immunity apply to bankruptcy actions. The first article laid the foundation by analyzing the source, scope, and nature of states' immunity from suits filed in federal, court to enforce state and federal law (Journal of Bankruptcy Law and Practice, September/October 1998). The present article considers the extent to which the bankruptcy estate may enforce Bankruptcy Code actions against the states, notwithstanding state sovereign immunity.

Consumer Bankruptcy: A Roundtable Discussion, Janice E. Kosel

Publications

No abstract provided.

Limitations On Use Of The California Homestead Exemption In Bankruptcy Cases: The Case For Following In Re Pladson, Leslie Burton, Jeffrey C. Wurms

Publications

Two decisions, a 1991 California Court of Appeal decision, Spencer v. Lowery, and a 1993 United States District Court for the Northern District of California decision, In re Pladson, severely restricted the homestead exemption available in bankruptcy cases filed in California. Some bankruptcy courts have refused to follow the Spencer and Pladson cases and the California Legislature has passed new legislation on the use of the homestead exemption in bankruptcy. This article will explore the background and rationale of the decisions and the legislative scheme, and offer support for limiting the Homestead exemption in bankruptcy cases.

Saybrook Manufacturing: Is Cross-Collateralization Moot?, Karen Gebbia, Lawrence E. Oscar

Publications

This article examines the Saybrook decision in the context of prior case law and the general principles underlying the Code. The first section lays the foundation for an analysis of Saybrook by identifying the fundamental tenets of the Code and outlining the protections available under the Code to preserve secured creditors' property interests in their collateral and to induce lenders to provide DIPs with new credit. The next section defines cross-collateralization, analyzes the Saybrook decision in the context of prior case law, and considers whether cross-collateralization is permissible under the Code's express provisions and general policies. The authors conclude that …

Running The Gauntlet Of "Undue Hardship" - The Discharge Of Student Loans In Bankruptcy, Janice E. Kosel

Publications

No abstract provided.