Banking and Finance Law Commons^™

Should Ad Hoc Committees Have Fiduciary Duties?: Judicial Regulation Of The Bankruptcy Market, David L. Perechocky

David L Perechocky

This article is the first to substantively and directly address the question of whether informal creditor groups in bankruptcy cases could and should have fiduciary duties to other creditors. The rise of activist investors and claims traders in bankruptcy proceedings has significantly changed the bankruptcy process, to much controversy. One particularly contentious topic is the growing presence of informal, or “ad hoc,” creditor groups. Proponents argue that these groups are beneficial by enabling creditors to work together efficiently and effectively, but critics view their actions as disruptive and often unfair to other creditors. A recent decision in the Washington Mutual …

Transaction Consistency And The New Finance In Bankruptcy, David A. Skeel Jr., Thomas Jackson

All Faculty Scholarship

Prior to the enactment of the Dodd-Frank Act last summer, derivatives and repurchase agreements (“repos”) were largely unregulated outside of bankruptcy, and also were exempted from core bankruptcy provisions such as the automatic stay, which prevents creditors from seizing collateral or attempting to collect what they are owed. The Dodd-Frank Act now extensively regulates derivatives outside of bankruptcy, but it left their special treatment in bankruptcy completely untouched.

There is a gap in the debate over this special treatment. To date, neither scholars nor the derivatives industry have fully analyzed the key counterfactual: what would happen if derivatives and repos …