The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Commercial and Administrative Law held a hearing recently examining H.R. 2533, the "Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Venue Reform Act of 2011." Members of the committee expressed concern that a number of major companies have chosen to file for chapter 11 in the magnet courts of the District of Delaware or the Southern District of New York even when the debtors have little nexus to those districts. The witnesses for the hearing included Peter C. Califano of Cooper White & Cooper in San Francisco, Prof. David Skeel of the University of Pennsylvania Law School in Philadelphia, Chief Bankruptcy Judge Frank J. Bailey of the District of Massachusetts in Boston and Prof. Melissa Jacoby of the University of North Carolina School of Law in Chapel Hill, N.C. Prof. Skeel defended the current venue rules. All are ABI Members.
Click here to read the prepared witness testimony for the hearing.
The FDIC recently approved an interim final rule that would require an insured depository institution with $50 billion or more in total assets to submit periodic contingency plans to the FDIC for resolution in the event of the financial institution's failure, according to an FDIC press release. The rule requires these insured institutions to submit a resolution plan that will enable the FDIC, as receiver, to resolve the bank to ensure that depositors receive access to their insured deposits within one business day of the institution's failure, maximize the net present value return from the sale or disposition of its assets and minimize the amount of any loss to be realized by the institution's creditors. Currently, 37 insured depository institutions are covered by the interim final rule. Those institutions held approximately $3.6 trillion in insured deposits or nearly 60 percent of all insured deposits as of Dec. 31, 2010. The interim final rule authorizes its publication in the Federal Register with a 60-day comment period and an effective date of Jan. 1, 2012.
Click here to read the final rule.
ABI has been busy this summer creating new online products with the goal of saving you time and resources. The newest addition to this lineup is Search - search.abi.org. This new member resource searches more than 2 million keywords across all the ABI information platforms. The search covers every issue of the ABI Journal since 1997 and every ABI Law Review since 1995, in addition to all books, CLE conference materials and other exclusive ABI content. This search feature is also available on your smartphone or tablet.
Get up-to-speed and in the know quickly with Search - search.abi.org.
ABI is pleased to announce the launch of another new product, materials.abi.org. At this new conference educational materials website members can sort resources dating back to 2005 by conference, speaker or keyword. Exclusively for our members, files will be downloaded to your device in PDF format. This new website is also accessible on your smartphone or tablet, and all documents are newly formatted to be compatible. Click here to view the new materials website.
ABI's Southwest Bankruptcy Conference was held in Las Vegas earlier this month, and resulted in an educational session of interest to the committee. The panelists for the session titled, "Impact of Recent Supreme Court Decisions" discussed the five consumer bankruptcy decisions handed down since March 2010 and their impact on, and conflicts with, the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) regulations. The group also gave an analysis and discussed implications of the recent Supreme Court decision, Stern v. Marshall. Panelists for the session included Christopher P. Burke of Burke & Associates in Las Vegas, Richardo I. Kilpatrick of Kilpatrick & Associates, PC in Auburn Hills, Mich., Hon. Dennis Montali of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco and Prof. Mark S. Scarberry of Pepperdine University School of Law in Malibu, Calif. Click here to view "Impact of Recent Supreme Court Decisions" educational materials.
