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Full-Text Articles in Law
Third-Party Releases Under The Bankruptcy Code After Purdue Pharma, Jeanne L. Schroeder, David G. Carlson
Third-Party Releases Under The Bankruptcy Code After Purdue Pharma, Jeanne L. Schroeder, David G. Carlson
Articles
The biggest bankruptcy case ever (as measured by unsecured claims against a debtor-in-possession) is In re Purdue Pharma, LLC. The bankruptcy court affirmed a plan discharging the Sackler family (equity owners and often officers of Purdue) of all “derivative” claims that belonged to the debtor-in-possession. The settlement was bought for a substantial sum payable over time by the Sacklers. A debtor-in-possession is the sole owner of a derivative claim and has the power to bind all the creditors to a settlement. Under the Bankruptcy Code, a plan discharging derivative claims is confirmable. In fact, as we will, show, a great …
Generalized Creditors And Particularized Creditors: Against A Unified Theory Of Standing In Bankruptcy, David G. Carlson, Jeanne L. Schroeder
Generalized Creditors And Particularized Creditors: Against A Unified Theory Of Standing In Bankruptcy, David G. Carlson, Jeanne L. Schroeder
Articles
Courts have struggled toward a unified theory to explain when the trustee has exclusive jurisdiction to sue a third party for harms done to a bankrupt debtor, and when creditors have exclusive jurisdiction to sue the third party. Courts have proclaimed that when every creditor can sue the third party, then none of them can, and the right belongs solely to the trustee. Creditor rights are “generalized.” If only a proper subset of creditors can sue the third party, then the trustee is not able to subrogate to the subset. Such creditors are “particularized.” This paper proclaims the test a …
Giving Back A Fraudulent Transfer: A Defense To Liability?, David G. Carlson
Giving Back A Fraudulent Transfer: A Defense To Liability?, David G. Carlson
Articles
In Whitlock v. Lowe (In re Deberry) (5th Cir. 2019), the Fifth Circuit court of appeals found it obvious that if a transferee gives back fraudulently transferred funds (which the debtor then dissipates), the transferee has a complete defense to liability to the transferor’s bankruptcy trustee. This puts the Fifth Circuit at odds with the Sixth and Seventh Circuits, where the prepetition give-back counted as no defense. This article concludes that a more nuanced position should mediate between these extremes, based on an “innocent donee” defense retrieved from Nineteenth Century precedent. The article emphasizes that if bad faith transferees for …