Bankruptcy Law Commons^™

Money Is Morphing - Cryptocurrency Can Morph To Be An Environmentally And Financially Sustainable Alternative To Traditional Banking, Clovia Hamilton

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Ai Doppelgänger Dilemma: Cloned Voices In The Music Industry, Elizabeth Shields

Seattle University Law Review

With the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI), there has been an influx of “voice clones”—deep-learning algorithms that create synthetic speech to realistically mimic human voices. Celebrities and, in particular, music artists, have been subjected to the proliferation of AI voice clones on social media platforms like TikTok and streaming platforms such as Spotify. Despite music utilizing AI voice clones having amassed much popularity, this technology can be harmful and highly invasive to musicians whose livelihoods often depend on their distinct voices. While legal scholars have attempted to articulate various rights that could protect a person’s voice, individuals are largely …

Debt In Just Societies: A General Framework For Regulating Credit, John Linarelli

Scholarly Works

Debt presents a dilemma to societies: successful societies benefit from a substantial infrastructure of consumer, commercial, corporate, and sovereign debt but debt can cause substantial private and social harm. Pre- and post-crisis solutions have seesawed between subsidizing and restricting debt, between leveraging and deleveraging. A consensus exists among governments and international financial institutions that financial stability is the fundamental normative principle underlying financial regulation. Financial stability, however, is insensitive to equality concerns and can produce morally impermissible aggregations in which the least advantaged in a society are made worse off. Solutions based only on financial stability can restrict debt without …

Desperation Finance: Merchant Cash Advances In Bankruptcy And Beyond, Kara Bruce

Emory Bankruptcy Developments Journal

Over the last several years, Merchant Cash Advances (“MCAs”) have risen in prominence as a form of short-term financing for distressed small businesses. MCA transactions are distinct from most small-business lending because they are not structured as loans at all. Rather, in exchange for a lump sum of cash, the merchant purports to sell to the funder an unidentified percentage of its future receipts or receivables. This structure allows funders to sidestep the application of lending regulations and usury protections, but it strains the foundations of commercial law and generates a host of interpretive challenges.

Bankruptcy, district, and circuit courts …

The Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy A: Overview, Rosalind Z. Wiggins, Thomas Piontek, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc., the fourth-largest U.S. investment bank, sought Chapter 11 protection, initiating the largest bankruptcy proceeding in U.S. history. The demise of the 164-year old firm was a seminal event in the global financial crisis. Under the direction of its long-time Chief Executive Officer Richard Fuld, Lehman had been very successful pursuing a high-leverage, high-risk business model that required it to daily raise billions of dollars to fund its operations. Beginning in 2006, Lehman began to invest aggressively in real-estate-related assets and soon had significant exposures to housing and subprime mortgages, just as these …

The Past, Present, And Future Of Bankruptcy Law In America, Todd J. Zywicki

Michigan Law Review

As this Review was being written, Congress once again failed to pass the bipartisan bankruptcy-reform bill, although many expect it to be enacted at some point in the near future. At the same time, WorldCom, Enron, Global Crossing, and their ignominous peers continue to set records for the size, expense, and public attention drawn to business bankruptcy. For the first time, consumer bankruptcies surpassed the 1.5 million per year mark, continuing an irresistible upward trend. Meanwhile, law firms announce layoffs and salary freezes in most departments, and bankruptcy professionals prosper amidst the despair, billing $1 million per day on the …

More Than Fraud: Proving Fraud On The Court, Stephen Van Doran

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

In all adversarial proceedings, litigants have a duty of full disclosure and honesty with the court. Typically, where a party obtains a judgment through fraudulent conduct, the only way to overturn that judgment is through a motion to vacate pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(3).

A final judgment can also be overturned by a motion, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(d)(3), as incorporated into the Bankruptcy Rules by Rule 9024, to vacate a judgment based upon fraud on the court. Fraud on the court is generally limited to instances where “the integrity of the judicial …

Small Business Owners Are Entitled To Exempt Reasonable Compensation From The Bankruptcy Estate, Rachel Mcgarry

Bankruptcy Research Library

(Excerpt)

The COVID-19 pandemic greatly impacted small business owners in the United States. In March 2020, the United States Small Business Administration (“SBA”) began aiding eligible small business owners in the form of Economic Injury Disaster Loans (“EIDL”). EIDLs were made available to small businesses that were unable to meet existing financial obligations for necessary operating costs. Those funds can be used to “make regular payments for operating expenses, including payroll.”

This article addresses whether small business owners are entitled to pay themselves reasonable compensation as earnings for their efforts, which in turn may be exempted from their future bankruptcy …

Jpmorgan Chase London Whale A: Risky Business, Arwin G. Zeissler, Daisuke Ikeda, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

In December 2011, the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer of JPMorgan Chase (JPM) instructed the bank’s Chief Investment Office to reduce the size of its Synthetic Credit Portfolio (SCP) during 2012, so that JPM could decrease its RiskWeighted Assets as the bank prepared to adopt the impending Basel III bank capital regulations. However, the SCP traders were also told to minimize the trading costs incurred to reduce Risk-Weighted Assets, while still maintaining the opportunity to profit from unexpected corporate bankruptcies. In an attempt to balance these competing objectives, head SCP derivatives trader Bruno Iksil suggested in January 2012 …

Sneakers, The Shoes That Talk The Talk And Walk The Walk: How Jack Daniel’S Properties, Inc. V. Vip Products Left Its Footprint On Trademark Law And The Sneaker Industry, Nitya Tolani

Seattle University Law Review

As the fashion industry—including the sneaker industry housed within it—continues to go through the motions of collectively flocking out, and then collectively flocking again to the newest innovations in the world of wearables, the landscape of laws to protect and promote those innovations expands as well, mainly in the area of intellectual property law. Although copyright, trademark, and patent law can cover innovations in the fashion industry, this Note centers its analysis on trademark law. Trademark law has been through notable change in recent years because of the United States Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Jack Daniel’s Properties, Inc. v. …