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Courting Failure, Lynn M. Lopucki
Courting Failure, Lynn M. Lopucki
UF Law Faculty Publications
Courting Failure is the story of a bad venue statute that led to rampant forum shopping by large public companies. This forum shopping induced competition among bankruptcy courts for the cases. That competition in turn caused the unnecessary failure of many of the reorganizing companies and corrupted the United States Bankruptcy Courts. Congress has not acted to fix the statute because of Delaware's parochial interest in preserving the status quo.
Where Do You Get Off? A Reply To Courting Failure'S Critics, Lynn M. Lopucki
Where Do You Get Off? A Reply To Courting Failure'S Critics, Lynn M. Lopucki
UF Law Faculty Publications
By historical accident, the bankruptcy venue statute gives large public companies their choice of bankruptcy courts. Over three decades a competition for those cases has developed among some United States Bankruptcy Courts. The most successful courts - Delaware and New York - today attract more than two thirds of the billion-dollar-and-over cases. The courts compete principally because the cases represent a multi-billion dollar a year industry in professional fees alone, because local lawyers pressure judges to compete, and because judges who lose the competition are stigmatized and may not be reappointed. In February 2005, the University of Michigan Press published …
Delaware Bankruptcy: Failure In The Ascendancy, Lynn M. Lopucki, Joseph W. Doherty
Delaware Bankruptcy: Failure In The Ascendancy, Lynn M. Lopucki, Joseph W. Doherty
UF Law Faculty Publications
In 1990, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware - then a one-judge backwater - began competing for big bankruptcy cases. In six years, that court achieved a near monopoly. In 2000, LoPucki and Kalin discovered that 42% of the companies filing in Delaware during that six year period of ascendency refiled bankruptcy within five years of their emergence, as compared with only 6% of those filing in courts other than Delaware and New York. In a later study, we found the (1) the failure of the companies reorganized in Delaware during the period of ascendency was …