Business Reorganization Committee

ABI Committee News

Volume 5, Number 1 / April 2006

In This Issue:

The Snipe Hunt REDUX

by Dillon Jackson
Foster Pepper PLLC; Seattle

Ten years ago, this writer, with Judge John Pearson and Tim Nohr, delved into the fantasyland of the cramdown interest rate. The practice involved hearings that proceeded like Alice’s Tea Party in search of the market rate for a 100 percent loan-to-value loan to a debtor with execrable credit and even poorer management skills. 

Read the full article.

Agenda for the 2006 Annual Spring Meeting

Be sure to attend the Business Reorganization, Public Companies & Claims Trading, and Financial Advisors Committees’ joint presentation, “The Power of Information: Who Gets What and How Can They Use It?” on Friday, April 21, 2:15-3:45 p.m. This discussion will focus on information dissemination and control of information during a chapter 11 case. Panelists will include William Weintraub of Pachulski, Stang, Ziehl, Young, Jones & Weintraub P.C. in New York, Daniel Golden of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP in New York and Bradley Sharp of Development Specialists, Inc. in Los Angeles.
Panel topics include:

  • Who's in control of the information, and how do you know?
    • What does §1102(b)(3) require the committee to do?
    • Should the debtor and other parties share confidential information with the committee? What are the DIP’s information-sharing duties?
    • What can (or should) the debtor and/or the committee do to clarify the requirement to share information?
    • Are lawyers “dodging” the new disclosure requirements with first-day “information-sharing protocol orders?” (WSJ, Feb. 28, 2006)?
  • Who gets the information, and what are they going to do with it?
    • What can the committee/debtor do if a party adverse to the debtor (competitor, buyer, hedge fund) demands "access" to "information" under §1102(b)(3)?
    • Does 1102(b)(3) provide information to the "little guy," or does it provide ammunition for the “vultures”?
    • Is this one more step in making the bankruptcy process “Vulture Heaven?” (The Deal, Jan. 24, 2006)
    • Should any information the committee shares with any creditor be shared simultaneously with all creditors to mitigate abuse by traders? Are we moving toward a securities law model?
  • How do you keep control of information once the claims trade or the debtor is in play?
    • Do "trading walls" work in a hedge fund world? 
    • Is there any reason for us to believe they will?
    • Should we just bar committee members from trading?
    • Is an auction the end of confidentiality in fact?