Bankruptcy Law Commons^™

Directors' Duties In Failing Firms, Kelli A. Alces, Larry E. Ribstein

Scholarly Publications

Despite many cases with seemingly contrary dicta, corporate directors of failing firms do not have special duties to creditors. This follows from the nature of fiduciary duties and the business judgment rule. Under the business judgment rule, the directors have broad discretion to decide what to do and in whose interests to act. There is some authority for a limited creditor right to sue on behalf of the corporation to enforce this duty. However, any such right does not make the duty one owed to creditors. The creditors individually may sue the corporation for breach of specific contractual, tort, and …

Relief In The Boardroom: How The Third Circuit's Citx Decision Weakened Deepening Insolvency As An Independent Cause Of Action, Brya M. Keilson

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Twilight In The Zone Of Insolvency: Fiduciary Duty And Creditors Of Troubled Companies - Presentation Of Much Ado About Little? Directors' Fiduciary Duties In The Vicinity Of Insolvency, Stephen M. Bainbridge

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Twilight In The Zone Of Insolvency: Fiduciary Duty And Creditors Of Troubled Companies - Comparative & International Perspectives, Andres Engert, Reid Feldman, Pamela L.J. Huff, Donna W. Mckenzie-Skene

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Much Ado About Little? Directors' Fiduciary Duties In The Vicinity Of Insolvency, Stephen M. Bainbridge

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

The Duty To Creditors Reconsidered - Filling A Much Needed Gap In Corporation Law, Richard A. Booth

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Directors' Duty To Creditors Of A Financially Distressed Company: A Perspective From Across The Pond, Donna W. Mckenzie-Skene

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Gap Filling In The Zone Of Insolvency, Frederick Tung

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Directors' Duty To Creditors And The Debt Contract, Simone M. Sepe

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

From Production Resources To Peoples Department Stores: A Similar Response By Delaware And Canadian Courts On The Fiduciary Duties Of Directors To Creditors Of Insolvent Companies, Pamela L.J. Huff, Russell C. Silberglied

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Twilight In The Zone Of Insolvency: Fiduciary Duty And Creditors Of Troubled Companies - History & Background, Royce De R. Barondes, Lisa Fairfax, Lawrence A. Hamermesh, Robert Lawless

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Twilight In The Zone Of Insolvency: Fiduciary Duty And Creditors Of Troubled Companies - Theory And Policy, Kelli A. Alces, Larry E. Ribstein, Alan Schwartz, Simone M. Sepe

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Direct Creditor Claims For Breach Of Fiduciary Duty: Is They Is, Or Is They Ain't? A Practitioner's Notes From The Field, Roger A. Lane

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Directors' Duties In Failing Firms, Larry E. Ribstein, Kelli A. Alces

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Bankruptcy Decision Making: An Empirical Study Of Continuation, Edward R. Morrison

Faculty Scholarship

Many small businesses attempt to reorganize under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, but most are ultimately liquidated instead. Little is known about this shutdown decision. It is widely suspected that the bankruptcy process exhibits a continuation bias, allowing failing businesses to linger under the protection of the court, which resists liquidation even when it is optimal. This paper examines the shutdown decision in a sample of Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases filed in a typical bankruptcy court over the course of a year. The presence of continuation bias is tested along several dimensions – the extent of managerial control …

Twilight In The Zone Of Insolvency: Fiduciary Duty And Creditors Of Troubled Companies - The Duty To Creditors In Practice, J. William Callison, Mark A. Grovic, James J. Hanks Jr., Roger A. Lane

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Fiduciary Duties In Distressed Corporations: Second Generation Issues, Royce De R. Barondes

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Why A Fiduciary Duty Shift To Creditors Of Insolvent Business Entities Is Incorrect As A Matter Of Theory And Practice, J. William Callison

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Contractarianism, Contractualism, And The Law Of Corporate Insolvency, Riz Mokal

ExpressO

What is the appropriate way of theorising about corporate bankruptcy law? That lies, argues this paper, in rejecting Pareto and Kaldor-Hicks efficiency in favour of a particular conception of transaction cost efficiency, and in rejecting the ‘contractarian’ Creditors’ Bargain Model in favour of the ‘contractualist’ Authentic Consent Model. The paper vindicates these arguments with an analysis of the automatic stay which characterises the collective liquidation regime, of the pari passu principle often said to be at the heart of this regime, and of the liability imposed in some jurisdictions on the managers of terminally distressed companies for failing to take …

A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.

Recent Defined Benefit Pension Reform: Reasons And Results, Daniel B. Klaff

ExpressO

In the face of corporate bankruptcies, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (“PBGC”) assures workers that their defined benefit pensions will be protected. It is this fact which has motivated recent reform of the PBGC and the overarching defined benefit plan system by Congress. This paper explores those reforms by addressing the reasons for and results of the most recent reform which had as its primary aim restoring the fiscal solvency of the PBGC. The paper challenges popular accounts of the reform process while examining the results of such reform for important stakeholders without resorting to an overly technical discussion of …

Fast, Cheap, And Creditor-Controlled: Is Corporate Reorganization Failing?, Melissa B. Jacoby

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Bond Repudiation, Tax Codes, The Appropriations Process And Restitution Post-Eminent Domain Reform, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

This brief comment suggests where the anti-eminent domain movement might be heading next.

Priority As Pathology: The Pari Passu Myth, Riz Mokal

ExpressO

This paper aims to analyse the pari passu principle of insolvency law (which provides that the creditors of a company in liquidation are to be paid rateably), and to ask how it relates to other principles available for the treatment of claims in corporate liquidation. The discussion reveals that the principle has rather limited effect in governing distributions of the insolvent's estate. Not only do various types of secured claim fall beyond its ambit, even unsecured claims are often exempt from its application. Nevertheless, the principle thrives both in judicial rhetoric and in academic arguments. For example, many a challenge …

The Search For Someone To Save: A Defensive Case For The Priority Of Secured Credit, Riz Mokal

ExpressO

The priority of secured credit has repeatedly and famously been attacked for allowing the exploitation of certain types of unsecured creditor. It has also been blamed for creating inefficiencies. This paper examines these arguments specifically as applied to this jurisdiction, and using both theoretical analysis and recent empirical data, suggests none of them can be sustained. It is argued that security is unlikely to lead to the exploitation of involuntary, ‘uninformed’, or ‘unsophisticated’ creditors, since the perverse incentives it allegedly creates for the debtor’s management are likely to be outweighed by the managers’ liquidation-related costs. It is then pointed out …

The Implications Of The Third Circuit's Armstrong Decision On Creative Corporate Restructuring: Will Strict Construction Of The Absolute Priority Rule Make Chapter 11 Consensus Less Likely?, Harvey R. Miller, Ronit J. Berkovich

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Authentic Consent Model: Contractarianism, Creditors' Bargain, And Corporate Liquidation, Riz Mokal

ExpressO

The first part of this article asks if the Creditors’ Bargain Model, long employed by insolvency scholars as the starting point for many an analysis, can explain or justify even the most distinctive and fundamental feature of insolvency law. After examining the defining features of the model’s construction, the role of self-interest and consent in it, and its ex ante position, it is concluded that the Bargain model can neither explain nor legitimate the coercive collective liquidation regime.

The second part of the article develops an alternative model to analyse and justify insolvency law. The starting premise is that all …

The Floating Charge – An Elegy, Riz Mokal

ExpressO

This paper argues that the usual way of conflating floating with fixed charges as small variations on a single theme – as priority-based devices differing only in degree – fundamentally misunderstands its true nature. The floating charge plays a distinctive role as a residual management displacement device which can only be effective if coupled with an appropriate set of fixed security that enables its holder to gather information about the competence of the debtor’s managers and to control their incentives to misbehave. The floating charge allows the debtor free use of its circulating assets while its management is doing well, …

Administrative Receivership And Administration - An Analysis, Riz Mokal

ExpressO

This paper argues that the Enterprise Act 2002 has changed the way those dealing with distressed companies are required to behave much more significantly than most commentators realise. The motivation for this change lies in the ways in which administrative receivership is destructive of social value (in terms of unnecessary job losses and other resource misallocations). The paper identifies three such ways, all linked with the fact that receivership ties the office-holder’s duties to the interests of the debtor’s main bank. This is undesirable because the bank (a) is usually oversecured and thus has little incentive, once receivership is underway, …

Charges Over Chattels – Issues In The Fixed/Floating Jurisprudence, Stephen Atherton, Riz Mokal

ExpressO

Much of the recent debate as to the criteria which determine whether a charge is properly characterised as fixed or floating has revolved around charges over book debts or other receivables. Charges over chattels have received somewhat less attention, even though an attempt to create a fixed charge over chattels gives rise to interesting questions, some of which do not arise when the collateral consists simply of receivables. While some of these questions have received judicial attention in recent years, others are only now starting to be considered. In this paper, we provide an overview of some of the most …