Bankruptcy Law Commons^™

Pari Passu And A Distressed Sovereign's Rational Choices, William W. Bratton

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Part I describes the disruptive role the pari passu clause plays in sovereign debt compositions, stating the case favoring the narrow reading. Part II reconsiders the economic incentives in play at the time lenders close loans to sovereigns, stating a case for the broad reading. Part III works the competing readings through the legal framework of bond contract interpretation. The exercise shows that the matter comes down to a choice between an ex ante reading, conducted as of the time the contract is executed and delivered, and an ex post reading, conducted as of the later time of distress. The …

Credit Card Policy In A Globalized World, Ronald J. Mann

Faculty Scholarship

This paper relies on data from countries around the world to present a comprehensive analysis of policy issues related to credit cards. The first part discusses the rise of credit cards and debit cards and how their uses differ from country to country. It closes with a framework for explaining why cards are more and less successful in different countries, focusing in large part on the ready availability of detailed consumer credit information. The second part considers the relation between credit card use and bankruptcy. Relying on a time series of data from the United States, Canada, Great Britain and …

Roundtable Discussion - Bankruptcy Reform: Then And Now, G. Ray Warner, Arthur Miller, Christine Dugas, Phil Corwin, David Skeel, Robert Feidler, Gerald K. Smith, Brady Williamson, Richard Levin, Elizabeth Warren, William Bodoh, Samuel Gerdano

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

G. Ray Warner: Good morning, welcome back. The final component of our program is this outstanding group of commentators, who will be able to bring us some fresh perspectives on the present, past and possibly even the future of bankruptcy reform. We are very fortunate today to have a collection of some of the people who were most instrumental in the creation of the current Code and also in the efforts that have been percolating through Congress recently to look at the Code again and to consider revisions.

I would like to thank the panel for their willingness to …

Derivative Suits In Bankruptcy, Keith Sharfman

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

It is a fundamental tenet of corporate law that creditors, unlike shareholders, may not bring derivative suits on a firm's behalf—even if the firm is, or is nearly, insolvent. Corporate law affords creditors who are unhappy with a corporate debtor's management various remedies, such as the right (in limited circumstances) to put the firm into receivership or to sue the directors and officers directly for breaches of fiduciary duty. But the derivative suit is not among them.

The formal rationale for denying derivative standing to creditors is that a derivative suit is an assertion of ownership rights, and (in …

The Political Economy Of Property Exemption Laws, Richard M. Hynes, Anup Malani, Eric A. Posner

Faculty Publications

Exemption laws enable people who default on loans to protect certain assets from liquidation. Every state has its own set of exemption laws, and they vary widely. The 1978 federal bankruptcy law contains a set of national exemptions, which debtors in bankruptcy are permitted to use instead of their state's exemptions unless the state has formally "opted out" of the federal system. We contend that states' decisions to opt out shed light on their exemption levels. We find that states are more likely to opt out if their state exemption is lower than the federal exemption and that states are …

On Proof Of Preferential Effect, Rafael I. Pardo

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Article presents a comprehensive analysis of the manner in which the trustee of a debtor's estate may satisfy his burden of proof to demonstrate the preferential effect of a prebankruptcy transfer from a debtor to a creditor. The proposed framework, if adhered to by courts, will create a uniformity that gives preference law its proper reach and thereby reinforces its primary goal: equal treatment of similarly situated creditors (the equality principle). After examining the historical developments that have made a trustee's evidentiary burden administratively less complex, the Article discusses the Ninth Circuit's decision in Batlan v. TransAmerica Commercial Finance …

The Rise Of State Bankruptcy-Directed Legislation, Ronald J. Mann

Faculty Scholarship

The papers at this conference generally focus on the rise of securitization and the possibility that statutes designed to remedy abuses of securitization will wreak undue havoc on our capital markets. I take my starting point from the relatively intractable policy questions that those problems raise. It seems well accepted that securitization provides financing at lower cost to the large companies that use those transactions. If so, rules fostering securitization could enhance the overall performance of our economy. At the same time, there are legitimate concerns that the rise of securitization makes it less likely that large companies in financial …

Overoptimism And Overborrowing, Richard M. Hynes

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Bankruptcy's Acephalous Moment: Postpetition Transfers Under The Bankruptcy Code, David G. Carlson

Articles

No abstract provided.

An Empirical Investigation Of Liquidation Choices Of Failed High Tech Firms, Ronald J. Mann

Faculty Scholarship

Perhaps it is merely a reflection of my interests, but to my mind, empirical research requires a certain risk-preferent boldness. I like projects that explore how and why particular businesses make important decisions. After I identify a topic, I typically try to gather as much qualitative and quantitative information about it as I can, with the expectation that when I have learned a great deal about the topic something interesting will emerge that relates in some important way to an ongoing academic debate. Those projects usually do not begin with a specific hypothesis to prove or disprove-often either answer will …

Non-Procrustean Bankruptcy, Richard M. Hynes

Faculty Publications

Many advocates of bankruptcy reform bristle at aspects of the bankruptcy system they find distributively "unfair." These scholars point to the instances in which wealthy debtors have been able to retain million-dollar homes and luxury items, examples which at first glance might offend any reasonable sense of decency or fairness. Yet if bankruptcy provides insurance otherwise unavailable because of market failures, then an ideal bankruptcy system would embrace much of this inequality in post-bankruptcy standards of living. The wealthy generally choose private contracts that ensure their high standards of living. Though others envy these benefits, they do not wish to …

Bankrupting Trademarks, Xuan-Thao Nguyen

Articles

The explosive growth of technology in the last two decades has vastly expanded intellectual property jurisprudence and elevated intellectual property to a heightened status in the marketplace. Indeed, a company's intellectual property assets may now be its most valuable corporate assets. Moreover, the property value of some trademarks is significantly greater than that of the trademark owner's physical assets.

The term “intellectual property” is commonly understood to include patents, trade secrets, copyrights, and trademarks. Yet a paradigm has been constructed and enforced over the last fifteen years wherein only patents, trade secrets, and copyrights are included. The paradigm specifically excludes …