Tag: Bankruptcy

Second Circuit Finds Anderson News Pleading Is Plausible . . . Enough

The National Law Review recently featured an article, Second Circuit Finds Anderson News Pleading Is Plausible . . . Enough, written by Scott Martin, Simon Harms, Mary K. Marks, Scott Martin, Irving Scher, and Stephen C. Tupper of Greenberg Traurig, LLP:

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Admonishing that motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim must be decided based on whethera plaintiff’s complaint is plausible rather than how plausible it is, which was the district’s view in granting a dismissal motion, the Second Circuit, in Anderson News, L.L.C. v. American Media, Inc.,[1] declared improper the district court’s denial of leave to file a proposed amended complaint and vacated the dismissal.

Prior to its bankruptcy, Anderson News was the second largest wholesaler of magazines to newsstands and bookstores in the United States. Anderson alleged in a lawsuit against its major publisher suppliers that in response to a magazine distribution surcharge that Anderson another wholesaler (Source) had announced, the publishers conspired with Anderson’s competitors and distribution service companies to refuse to deal with the two wholesalers in order to drive them out of business Anderson claimed that the group boycott resulted in its loss of access to 80 percent of the magazines it distributed.

The District Court Decision

Judge Paul A. Crotty of the Southern District of New York dismissed Anderson’s original complaint under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), denied reconsideration, and refused leave to file a proposed amended complaint, finding the alleged conspiracy to be facially implausible under the Twombly-Iqbalstandard,[2] and the original pleading’s defects incurable.[3] Among other things, Judge Crotty commented that eliminating Anderson and Source would have left 90 percent of the wholesale market share in the hands of two competitors. Because publishers and distributors have an economic self-interest in having more, not fewer, wholesalers (since that yields greater competition, which is good for suppliers), Judge Crotty concluded that the conspiracy’s alleged goal was implausible. By contrast, he believed that parallel, but unilateral, conduct was “completely plausible” under the circumstances. Specifically, the defendants initially had different reactions to the surcharge; there was no direct evidence of conspiracy alleged in the original complaint; and the defendants’ decisions to not pay the surcharge and instead stop shipping to Anderson were “in line with a wide swath of rational and competitive business strategy unilaterally prompted by common perceptions of the market.”[4]

The district court concluded that Anderson’s allegations presented only “an economically implausible antitrust conspiracy” that was “based on sparse parallel conduct allegations” and lacked “a context suggesting a preceding agreement.”[5]The district court further stated that while it was compelled to take “all factual allegations as true on a motion to dismiss, . . . factual inferences are not entitled to the same benefit.”[6]

The Court of Appeals Decision

The Second Circuit reversed. While acknowledging that Twombly required “some factual context suggesting [that the parties] reached an agreement, not facts that would be merely consistent with an agreement,”[7] the appellate court declared that it was not necessary for the plaintiff to show “that its allegations suggesting an agreement are more likely than not true or that they rule out the possibility of independent action, as would be required at later litigation stages such as a defense motion for summary judgment or a trial.”[8] The Second Circuit emphasized that “a given set of actions may well be subject to diverging interpretations, each of which is plausible,” but the choice between such interpretations was for the fact-finder, not for the court to make on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, “even if it strikes a savvy judge that actual proof of the facts alleged is improbable, and that a recovery is very remote and unlikely.”[9] Unlike the Twombly complaint, however, Anderson’s proposed amended complaint did not rely solely on allegations of parallel conduct that was explicable as natural, unilateral reactions, but did, in fact, allege actual agreement — identifying dates, executives, and statements that could plausibly be interpreted as such. Ruling that these amendments would have stated a claim, the Second Circuit stressed that “[t]he plausibility standard is lower than a probability standard, and there may therefore be more than one plausible interpretation of a defendant’s words, gestures, or conduct.”[10] In such circumstances, taking all facts as true and making all reasonable inferences, “on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion it is not the province of the court to dismiss the complaint on the basis of the court’s choice among plausible alternatives.”[11]

Should We Discern A Trend?

In another recent Twombly-Iqbal decision, Liu v. AMERCO,[12] the First Circuit was similarly permissive in applying the plausibility test, this time with respect to the required element of damages in a claim under the Massachusetts unfair trade practices statute (“Chapter 93A”). The plaintiff in Liu had brought a class action against the U-Haul truck rental companies premised upon a recent Federal Trade Commission investigation and consent order concerning an alleged invitation to collude by U-Haul to its major competitors (which as an attempt to conspire would not be actionable under Section 1 of the Sherman Act, but could be challenged under Section 5 of the FTC Act and,could potentially provide a basis for a claim, under Massachusetts’ Chapter 93A).

Although the plaintiff claimed to have undertaken two U-Haul rentals in or to Massachusetts, she did not plead specific facts concerning those transactions, such as what she paid or what competitors’ rates were at the time. The district court dismissed her complaint, explaining that basic facts about her individual transactions where necessary to judge whether she had overpaid, and whether such overpayment was caused by U-Haul’s unconsummated conspiracy attempt. The First Circuit, in an opinion by Judge Michael Boudin, disagreed, finding sufficient the plaintiff’s reliance, inter alia, upon the FTC complaint’s allegations (including references to specific documents) that U-Haul had raisedits own prices as an essential element of its effort to collude. Although the appellate court noted that “U-Haul’s brief raises fair questions about the power of the analysis,”[13] it held, not unlike the Second Circuit in Anderson News, that “[t]he place to test factual assertions for deficiencies and against conflicting evidence is at summary judgment or trial.”[14] Again, although the First Circuit appeared skeptical of the claim, it required that the complaint set forth “only enough facts to make the claim plausible, and at this stage reasonable inferences are taken in favor of the pleader.”[15]

Author’s note: Several years ago, while participating on a panel not long after the Supreme Court decided Twombly, I was greeted with skepticism (to put it politely) when arguing that it would not be an extraordinary extension of the then-new pleading standard to require that a complaint alleging an agreement in restraint of trade set forth facts that, if true and allowing for all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff’s favor, stated a claim that was more plausibly consistent with conspiracy than with competition. After all, that would be a logical application of the summary judgment standard of Matsushita[16] — a decision that likewise is framed around notions of plausibility and economically rational behavior — in the pleading context: i.e., if the record were to develop consistent with plaintiff’s pleading, would it “tend to exclude the possibility” of independent, non-collusive action?[17] It would also respond to concerns expressed by the Supreme Court that even under the old Conley v. Gibson[18] “plaintiff can prove no set of facts” pleading standard in itsAssociated General Contractors[19] decision, a district court served an important gatekeeping role at the pleading stage in antitrust cases due to the significant expense of discovery.[20] From the perspective of this (principally defense) antitrust litigator, Judge Crotty’s approach in Anderson Newswas not unwelcome. For the time being, though, at least in the Second Circuit, it is not the law.

[1] ___ F.3d ___ (2d Cir. April 3, 2012). The decision is available on Westlaw at 2012 WL 1085948.

[2] See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S. Ct. 1937 (2009); Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007).

[3] Anderson News, L.L.C. v. Am. Media, Inc., 732 F. Supp. 2d 389 (S.D.N.Y. 2010).

[4] Id. at 397-99.

[5] Id. at 402.

[6] Id. (emphasis added).

[7] Anderson, 2012 WL 1085948, at *18 (internal quotations omitted).

[8] Id.

[9] Id. at *18-19 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).

[10] Id. at *24.

[11] Id.

[12] F.3d ___ (1st Cir. May 4, 2012) (Boudin, J.). The decision is available on Westlaw at 2012 WL 1560170.

[13] Id. at *6.

[14] Id.

[15] Id. (citing SEC v. Tambone, 597 F.3d 436, 441 (1st Cir. 2010)).

[16] Matsushita Elec .Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio, 475 U.S. 574 (1986).

[17] See id. at 588 (internal quotations omitted).

[18] 355 U.S. 41 (1957).

[19] Assoc. Gen. Contractors of Cal., Inc. v. Carpenters, 459 U.S. 519 (1983).

[20] See id. at 528 n.17 (“a district court must retain the power to insist upon some specificity in pleading before allowing a potentially massive factual controversy to proceed”).

©2012 Greenberg Traurig, LLP

Secured Lender Successfully Invokes Seldom Used Tool to Protect Collateral in Bankruptcy

Recently The National Law Review published an article about Protecting Collateral in Bankruptcy by Mark A. Berkoff, Robert Radasevich, Nicholas M. Miller, William Choslovsky and Kevin G. Schneider of Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP:

The commercial real estate market continues to struggle.  Beyond poor market conditions, financing difficulties and other well known issues of late, many mortgage holders, realizing that their properties are worth significantly less than their mortgage balance, are walking away from the properties or otherwise looking for a way to reduce their mortgage obligation to the property’s current depressed market value, including through a chapter 11 bankruptcy process.  Ultimately, the question in that situation becomes:  who will take the loss on their balance sheet—the lender or the borrower?  Often, the loss falls on the lender.

On January 19, 2012, however, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit issued an opinion, authored by Judge Richard A. Posner, representing a significant victory for undersecured lenders holding distressed real estate collateral.  In that case, In re River East Plaza, LLC, No. 11-3263, — F.3d —-, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 1048 (7th Cir. Jan. 19, 2012), the subject property was the River East Art Center located near Navy Pier in downtown Chicago.  Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP (“NGE”) was lead counsel to the property owner’s senior secured lender, LNV Corp., an affiliate of Beal Bank.

The facts are straightforward:  When the building’s owner and mortgagor, River East Plaza, LLC (“River East” or the “Debtor”), defaulted on its mortgage, LNV successfully pursued difficult foreclosure proceedings in state court and obtained a foreclosure sale order in February 2011, nearly two years after River East defaulted on its mortgage.  Then, just 11 hours before the scheduled foreclosure sale, River East filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, automatically halting the foreclosure sale.

Because this was a single asset real estate (“SARE”)[1] case, River East was subject to special Bankruptcy Code rules designed to put pressure on SARE debtors to move their cases quickly.

Once a Debtor files for bankruptcy, an estate is created and the Debtor is protected by an automatic stay that prohibits creditors of the Debtor from taking certain actions to collect debts, enforce remedies or complete litigation without obtaining relief from the automatic stay from the Bankruptcy Judge.  Among other things, in a SARE case, a Debtor has only 90 days to start making monthly mortgage payments to its lender or to file a plan of reorganization “that has a reasonable possibility of being confirmed within a reasonable time”.  If one of these conditions isn’t satisfied, then the Bankruptcy Judge must modify the automatic stay and may allow the lender to pursue its state court remedies (i.e. complete its foreclosure).  11 U.S.C. § 362(d)(3).

In this case, however, the Debtor did not make any mortgage payments to the lender within 90 days after the bankruptcy filing.  Therefore, the sole issue was whether this Debtor had timely filed a plan of reorganization that had a “reasonable possibility of being confirmed within a reasonable time.”  Id.  The Debtor filed a plan that, in effect, proposed to cash out the lender at a very distressed price, well below LNV’s $38.3 million claim.  While it was undisputed that the value of the real estate had fallen precipitously in the current real estate recession and that the property was “underwater,” the Debtor valued the property at what LNV viewed as an artificially low $15 million (and also valued LNV’s claim, after accounting for taxes and mechanics liens, at $13.5 million).  Because LNV was unwilling to accept a lowball cash out, it objected to the Debtor’s plan andalso made the strategic decision to make what is called a “section 1111(b) election” – a provision that has been in the Bankruptcy Code for over 30 years, but is seldom invoked.

The statute is awkwardly worded, confusing and hard to interpret, which may explain why it is seldom invoked, but the key takeaway is that section 1111(b):

  1. Allows a secured creditor to “elect” to have its entire claim treated as secured (even if the lender is undersecured (i.e. claim is worth $38.3 million and debtor (borrower) believes the lender’s secured interest in the collateral is worth only $13.5 million));
  2. Allows the secured lender to retain its lien on the property until that secured claim is paid in full;
  3. Is appropriate when the secured creditor believes the property is undervalued and will appreciate, and when the lender believes the reorganized debtor may later default under its confirmed plan; BUT
  4. The secured creditor, in making the election, must agree to waive its undersecured deficiency claim (in this case approximately $25 million).

As the Seventh Circuit stated:

. . . an under-secured creditor who decides, as LNV has decided, to participate in his debtor’s bankruptcy proceeding has a secured claim for the value of the collateral at the time of bankruptcy and an unsecured claim for the balance.  11 U.S.C. § 1111(b)(1)(A).  But generally he can exchange his two claims for a single secured claim equal to the face amount of the unpaid balance of the mortgage.  §§ 1111(b)(1)(B), (2).  LNV made this choice, so instead of having a secured claim for $13.5 million and an unsecured claim for $24.8 million it has a secured claim for $38.3 million and no unsecured claim . . .

The swap is attractive to a mortgagee who believes both that the property that secures his mortgage is undervalued and that the reorganized firm is likely to default again . . .

River East Plaza, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 1048, at *7-8.

The Debtor responded to LNV’s § 1111(b) election by filing an amended plan that offered LNV the option of receiving (1) a cash out of the secured portion of its claim at the distressed price of approximately $13.5 million, plus a dividend of 4% on LNV’s $25 million deficiency claim (meaning an additional $1 million); or(2) approximately $13.5 million in 30-year U.S. Treasury bonds paying approximately 3% interest (which, “through the magic of compound interest”, would pay LNV a total of $38.3 million in 30 years).

In so doing, the Debtor proposed to retain the property, to strip LNV’s lien from the property and, instead, give LNV a lien on the long-term Treasury Bonds so that the Debtor could obtain construction financing, develop the property, realize the benefit of any appreciation or improvement in the real estate market and, presumably, sell the property for a very tidy profit in a few years.  LNV, meanwhile, would be effectively cashed out for $13.5 million on its $38.3 million claim.

Needless to say, LNV vehemently opposed this tactic and immediately filed a motion to terminate the automatic stay on the grounds that the Debtor’s amended plan “was not likely to be confirmed in a reasonable time” because the Debtor was proposing to retain the property while stripping LNV’s lien in violation of section 1111(b) and other plan-related provisions of the Bankruptcy Code.  LNV argued that its § 1111(b) election ensured it the right to retainitslien on the real estate and benefit from any appreciation in the real estate market until its claim was paid in full.

The Debtor argued that it was able to do this because, among other things, giving LNV the lien on Treasury Bonds was giving LNV the “indubitable equivalent”[2] of its lien on the real estate, which the Bankruptcy Code allows under certain circumstances when a plan proponent (normally the debtor) attempts to cram a plan down the throat of an objecting secured creditor.[3]  LNV countered that even ifthe Debtor could use the “indubitable equivalent” standard of cram down, a lien on stagnant 30-year Treasury Bonds was not the indubitable equivalent of a lien on real estate that can and does fluctuate wildly in value.

Bankruptcy Judge Wedoff agreed with LNV and lifted the automatic stay to allow the foreclosure to proceed, and he also dismissed the bankruptcy case.  River East successfully requested a direct appeal to the Seventh Circuit, which ultimately affirmed Bankruptcy Judge Wedoff’s decisions.

In a key ruling for secured creditors, the Seventh Circuit determined that the Debtor had delayed the secured creditor long enough and that Judge Wedoff appropriately lifted the stay and dismissed the bankruptcy case.  The Seventh Circuit also determined that the proposed replacement lien on 30-year Treasury Bonds was not the indubitable equivalent of LNV’s lien on the property because the risk profiles of the two forms of collateral were not equivalent.

Judge Posner observed that:

River East argues that the reason LNV chose to convert the entire $38.3 million debt that it was owed to a secured claim is that it wanted to thwart the bankruptcy proceeding.  No doubt.  LNV wanted to foreclose its mortgage and doubtless expected to be the high bidder at the foreclosure sale and thus become the building’s owner and so the sole beneficiary of any appreciation if and when the real estate market recovered.  But there is nothing wrong with a secured creditor’s wanting the automatic stay lifted so that it can maximize the recovery of the money owed it.

* * *

Banning substitution of collateral indeed makes good sense when as in the present case the creditor is undersecured . . .

River East, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 1048, at *12.

The Court also explained that:

And so it comes as no surprise that the lien on the Treasury bonds proposed by River East would not be equivalent to LNV’s retaining its lien on the building.  Suppose the building turns out to be worth $40 million five years from now, yet River East, having borrowed heavily in the interim to finance improvements that bring the building’s value up to that level, defaults.  With its lien intact and the bankruptcy court unlikely in this second round of bankruptcy to stay foreclosure, LNV would be able to foreclose, and so would be paid in full.  In contrast, if its lien were transferred to the substituted collateral, it would have to wait another 25 years to recover the $38.3 million owed it.

Id. at *14.

Judge Posner summed up the case as follows:

River East’s aim may have been to cash out LNV’s lien in a period of economic depression and reap the future appreciation in the building’s value when the economy rebounds.  Such a cashout is not the indubitable equivalent of a lien on the real estate, and to require it would be inconsistent with section 1111(b) of the Code, which allows the secured creditor to defeat such a tactic by writing up his secured claim to the full amount of the debt, at the price of giving up his unsecured claim to the difference between the current value of the debt and of the security.

Id. at *17 (emphasis added).

So, at least in this jurisdiction, secured lenders holding distressed real estate as collateral when a borrower files a SARE chapter 11 case now have another arrow in their quiver that can be used and must be considered.  Depending on the facts of your particular case, the §1111(b) election may just be “checkmate” to a debtor that is (i) frustrating a secured lender’s remedies on a defaulted mortgage, (ii) stringing out the lender in foreclosure court and then filing a bankruptcy petition on the eve of foreclosure to attempt to retain their property, and (iii) attempting to cash out the secured lender at a historically low price or give it inferior collateral in an effort to cram down a bankruptcy plan that hurts the lender.  Such “tactics” will no longer be tolerated in the Seventh Circuit.

[1]           The Bankruptcy Code defines SARE as a nonresidential property, or a residential property containing five or more apartments or other residential units, “on which no substantial business is being conducted by a Debtor other than the business of operating the real property and activities incidental thereto.”  11 U.S.C. §101(51B).

[2]           The Bankruptcy Code does not define indubitable equivalence.

[3]           A complete discussion of the parameters of “cram down,” which is technically complicated under the Bankruptcy Code, is beyond the scope of this article.

© 2012 Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP.

Section 550 of the Bankruptcy Code Won’t Cap the Flow of Avoidance Action Liability

Recently The National Law Review published an article by Renée M. Dailey and Mark E. Dendinger of Bracewell & Giuliani LLP regarding Bankruptcy Codes:

Tronox Incorporated and certain affiliates (the “Debtors”) emerged from Chapter 11 in February 2011 armed with a new capital structure and operational game plan, but that’s yesterday’s news. The flavor of the month is last Friday’s decision by Justice Allan L. Gropper (located here) in a still pending adversary proceeding in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York (the “Court”) filed by the Debtors against Anadarko Petroleum Corporation and certain affiliates (“Anadarko”) seeking to recover an alleged fraudulent transfer. The Court dismissed Anadarko’s summary judgment motion, holding that while section 550 of the Bankruptcy Code provides a floor for creditor recoveries, it does not impose a cap on creditor recoveries following the determination of avoidance action liability.

In the adversary complaint, the Debtors alleged that in a prepetition transaction their predecessor corporation separated profitable oil and gas exploration and production assets from multi-billion dollar environmental and tort liabilities, in order to permit Anadarko to acquire the cleansed assets all while leaving behind significant environmental liabilities. The Debtors’ extensive environmental liabilities finally caught up with them and in January 2009 the Debtors filed for Chapter 11 protection. The Debtor’s plan of reorganization incorporated a settlement agreement by and amongst the Debtors, the environmental and tort plaintiffs and general unsecured creditors that handed general unsecured creditors the keys to the car (i.e., 100% of the Debtors’ equity) and left the environmental and tort creditors looking for alternate transportation – proceeds from the pending adversary proceeding – as the main source of their recovery. With the adversary proceeding trial starting in May, Anadarko and the Debtors filed competing motions for partial summary judgment on the limited issue of damages. The issue at hand was the interpretation of section 550(a), specifically the clause “for the benefit of the estate” and whether it places a damage cap on prospective fraudulent transfer liability.

By way of background, section 550 prescribes the damages owed by a transferee once a fraudulent transfer is avoided by a bankruptcy court. Specifically, subsection (a) permits the debtor in possession to recover either the value of the property or the property itself “for the benefit of the estate.” 11 U.S.C. § 550(a). In its motion for partial summary judgment, Anadarko argued that this language capped its liability, if any, in the fraudulent conveyance litigation to the total claims of the environmental and tort plaintiffs that would benefit from any fraudulent transfer litigation judgment. Specifically, Anadarko argued that the Debtors were inappropriately seeking to recover approximately $15.5 billion, despite the fact that the total amount of the environmental and tort claims at the time of prepetition transfer of assets was no more than $2 billion. The Debtors, on the other hand, asserted that the plain language of section 550(a) and relevant case law imposed no such ceiling on the Debtors’ potential recovery in the litigation.

The Court found no support for a damage cap in the plain words of section 550, and instead noted that the concept of the bankruptcy estate was broad and not limited to the interests or quantum of claims of creditors. The Court further focused on judicial interpretation of the “benefit of the estate” language and what other courts had determined constituted a “benefit” to the estate in order to permit the litigation to go forward. The Court determined that a “benefit” could either be direct (e.g., increased distribution to creditors) or indirect (e.g., increased chance of a successful Chapter 11 reorganization) and that the prospect of a recovery in the adversary proceeding had already benefited the Debtors’ estate by paving the way for a confirmable plan and raising the recovery for general unsecured creditors. Having established some benefit to the estate that could be (and here had been) obtained by bringing the avoidance action, the Court found no case law support for reading a cap on recovery into the same language. Indeed, the Court noted the significance that section 550 does not provide that a transfer can be avoided only “to the extent of the benefit to the estate.”

Anadarko further argued that because the Debtors relied on Oklahoma fraudulent transfer law – as incorporated by section 544(b) of the Bankruptcy Code – as the basis for a liability determination, the limitation under Oklahoma’s law that a creditor may not recover more than the amount of its claim should apply. The Court rejected this argument noting that such limitation was only relevant where an individual creditor was seeking to recover in a non-bankruptcy scenario and noted that the language of section 550 preempted relevant state law in this regard.

The Court noted that whether other relevant law would mitigate any ultimate finding of liability would require a full trial to drill down on the merits. All that is clear now is that section 550 does not cap the flow of damages from the liability well . . .

© 2012 Bracewell & Giuliani LLP

Common Attornment Provision Held Ineffective After Master Lease and Sublease Rejected in Bankruptcy by Debtor-Sublandlord

Posted in the National Law Review an article by attorney  Howard J. Berman of  Greenberg Traurig regarding a subtenant of commercial office space was permitted to vacate its leased premises after the rejection of the master lease and sublease by the debtor-sublandlord:

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In Green Tree Serv., LLC v. DBSI Landmark Towers LLC,1 a case that is significant for landlords and leasing attorneys, the Eighth Circuit recently held that a subtenant of commercial office space was permitted to vacate its leased premises after the rejection of the master lease and sublease by the debtor-sublandlord, notwithstanding an attornment provision in the sublease requiring the subtenant to attorn2 to the landlord when the landlord either terminates the master lease or otherwise succeeds to the interest of the sublandlord under the master lease.

Because the Eighth Circuit’s decision hinges on an interpretation of an attornment provision that is common in many sublease agreements, landlords and practitioners must be careful to draft attornment provisions that do not run afoul of the decision.

 

 

In a strict construction of the attornment provision, the court determined that because the master lease was rejected by the debtor-sublandlord and not terminated by the landlord, the attornment provision was never triggered. Because the Eighth Circuit’s decision hinges on an interpretation of an attornment provision that is common in many sublease agreements, landlords and practitioners must be careful to draft attornment provisions that do not run afoul of the Eighth Circuit’s decision.

In Green Tree, the landlord leased an office building to the debtor, DBSI Landmark Towers Leaseco, LLC (“DBSI”), under a master lease. DBSI then subleased the property to Green Tree Servicing, LLC (“Green Tree”). The master lease agreement between the landlord and tenantsublandlord DBSI required that any sublease include a provision providing for the subtenant to attorn to the landlord in certain circumstances. The sublease agreement entered into between DBSI and subtenant Green Tree required Green Tree to attorn to the landlord if the “[landlord] ‘terminates the Master Lease’ or ‘otherwise succeeds to the interest of [DBSI] under the foregoing Lease.’” 3

After tenant DBSI filed for bankruptcy, it rejected its master lease as well as its sublease with Green Tree pursuant to order of the bankruptcy court. In its motion to reject, DBSI indicated that the sublease would be terminated as a result of the rejection. In response, Green Tree exercised its rights under section 365(h) of the Bankruptcy Code (which allows a tenant whose lease is rejected by a debtor-lessor to either remain in possession or treat the lease as terminated) to treat the sublease as terminated.4 Although sublandlord DBSI did not object to Green Tree’s election to terminate the sublease, the landlord objected, claiming that the terms of the sublease required subtenant Green Tree to attorn to the landlord.5Green Tree then commenced an action in Minnesota state court seeking a declaration that the sublease was terminated and that it could vacate its premises. The landlord removed the case to federal court and cross-claimed for a judgment affirming the sublease.

The Eighth Circuit rejected Green Tree’s argument that because it exercised its right to terminate the sublease under section 365(h) it had no obligation to the landlord under the attornment provision in the sublease, stating “nothing in section 365(h) indicates that a debtor-lessor’s rejection of a lease extinguishes a third party’s rights and obligations under the lease.”6 The court then analyzed the language of the attornment provision strictly and determined that it would be triggered only when the landlord terminates the master lease or otherwise succeeds to the interest of sublandlord DBSI.7 Because DBSI and not the landlord rejected the master lease in DBSI’s bankruptcy case and because DBSI rejected and terminated the sublease, the court held that the attornment provision was never triggered and that subtenant Green Tree was free to vacate the premises. 8In reaching this conclusion, the court noted that DBSI never assigned its contractual interest in the sublease to the landlord prior to DBSI’s rejection and termination of the sublease and that the landlord “could not succeed to the interest in the sublease that no longer existed . . . .”9 Here, the only contractual interest to survive under the sublease was the landlord’s right to attornment, which right was not triggered.10

In light of the court’s strict interpretation of the attornment provision, landlords must be careful to include language in attornment provisions in both the master lease and sublease making it clear that a subtenant must attorn to the landlord in the event that a master lease and/or sublease is rejected under section 365 of the Bankruptcy Code by a debtor-sublandlord.

1__F. 3d__, 2011 WL 3802800 (8th Cir. Aug. 30, 2011).

2The term “attorn” means ‘“[t]o agree to be the tenant of a new landlord.’” Id. at *1 n. 5 (quoting Black’s Law Dictionary,
147 (9th ed. 2009)).

3Green Tree Serv., 2011 WL 3802800 at *1

411 U.S.C. § 365(h)(1)(A) provides in pertinent part:

If the trustee rejects an unexpired lease of real property under which the debtor is the lessor and –

(i) if the rejection by the trustee amounts to such a breach as would entitle the lessee to treat such lease as terminated by virtue of its terms, applicable nonbankruptcy law, or any agreement made by the lessee, then the lessee under such lease may treat such lease as terminated by the rejection . . .

5 See Green Tree Serv., 2011 WL 3802800 at *1.
6 Id. at *2 (citation omitted).
7 Id. at *3.
8 Id. at *3.
9 Id.
10Id.

©2011 Greenberg Traurig, LLP. All rights reserved.

Unsecured Creditors Beware! The Western District of Texas Bankruptcy Court Declares an Unsecured Creditor Cannot Have Its Cake (Unsecured Claim) and Eat It Too (Post-Petition Legal Fees)

Recently posted in the National Law Review an article by Evan D. Flaschen, Renée M. Dailey, Mark E. Dendinger of Bracewell & Giuliani LLP about the issue of whether an unsecured creditor can recover post-petition legal fees under the Bankruptcy Code:

Bankruptcy courts have long debated the issue of whether an unsecured creditor can recover post-petition legal fees under the Bankruptcy Code. In the recent decision of In re Seda France, Inc. (located here(opens in a new window)), Justice Craig A. Gargotta of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Texas denied an unsecured creditor’s claim for post-petition fees. In doing so, the Court has once again left the unsecured creditor with a bad taste in its mouth by declaring that an unsecured creditor seeking post-petition fees is asking permission to have its cake (a claim for principal, interest and pre-petition legal fees under applicable loan documents) and eat it too (a claim for post-petition legal fees).

Proponents of the view that an unsecured creditor cannot recover post-petition legal fees point to section 506(b) of the Bankruptcy Code, which allows as part of a creditor’s secured claim the reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs incurred during the post-petition period, and note the Bankruptcy Code is silent on anunsecured creditor’s right to post-petition legal fees. Essentially, the argument is since Congress provided for post-petition fees for secured creditors, it could have explicitly provided for post-petition fees for unsecured creditors but chose not to. Proponents of the alternative view cite the Second Circuit decision United Merchants and its progeny, where those courts refused to read the plain language of section 506(b) as a limitation on an unsecured creditor’s claim for recovery of post-petition legal expenses. The theory is that while the Bankruptcy Code does not expressly permit the recovery of an unsecured creditor’s claim for post-petition attorneys’ fees, it does not expressly exclude them either. The basic tenant is that if Congress intended to disallow an unsecured creditor’s claim for post-petition legal fees it could have done so explicitly.

In Seda, Aegis Texas Venture Fund II, LP (“Aegis”) timely filed a proof of claim in Seda’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case claiming its entitlement to principal, interest and pre-petition attorneys’ fees under its loan documents with Seda as well as post-petition attorneys’ fees for the duration of the case. Aegis made various arguments in support of the allowance of its post-petition legal expenses including: (1) the explicit award of post-petition fees to secured creditors under section 506(b) does not mean that such a provision should not be implicitly read into section 502(b) (i.e., unim est exclusion alterius (“the express mention of one thing excludes all others”) does not apply), (2) the United States Supreme Court decision in Timbers does not control as Timbers denied claims of anundersecured creditor for unmatured interest caused by a delay in foreclosing on its collateral, (3) the right to payment of attorneys’ fees and costs exists pre-petition and it should be irrelevant to the analysis that such fees are technically incurred post-petition, (4) because the Bankruptcy Code is silent on the disallowance of an unsecured creditor’s post-petition attorneys’ fees, these claims should remain intact, and (5) recovery of post-petition attorneys’ fees and costs is particularly appropriate where, as in Seda, the debtor’s estate is solvent and all unsecured creditors are to be paid in full as part of a confirmed Chapter 11 plan.

The Seda Court rejected Aegis’ arguments and held that an unsecured creditor is not entitled to post-petition attorneys’ fees even where there is an underlying contractual right to such fees and unsecured creditors are being paid in full. With respect to Aegis’ argument on the proper interpretation of sections 506(b) and 502(b), the Court cited the many instances in the Bankruptcy Code where Congress expressed its desire to award post-petition attorneys’ fees (e.g., section 506(b)), and found that Congress could have easily provided for the recovery of attorneys’ fees for unsecured creditors had that been its intent. Regarding Aegis’ argument that Timbers does not control, the Court held that in reaching its decision on the disallowance of a claim for unmatured interest the Timbers Court found support in the notion that section 506(b) of the Bankruptcy Code does not expressly permit post-petition interest to be paid to unsecured creditors. The SedaCourt held this ruling should apply equally to attorneys’ fees to prohibit recovery of post-petition fees and expenses by unsecured creditors. The Court further held that section 502(b) of the Bankruptcy Code provides that a court should determine claim amounts “as of the date of the filing of the petition,” and therefore attorneys’ fees incurred after the petition date would not be recoverable by an unsecured creditor. In response to Aegis’ argument that non-bankruptcy rights, including the right to recover post-petition attorneys’ fees should be protected, the Seda Court noted that the central purpose of the bankruptcy system is “to secure equality among creditors of a bankrupt” and that an unsecured creditor’s recovery of post-petition legal fees, even based on a contractual right, would prejudice other unsecured creditors. The Court held this is true even in the case where the debtor was solvent and paying all unsecured creditors in full. The Court noted that a debtor’s right to seek protection under the Bankruptcy Code is not premised on the solvency or insolvency of the debtor and, therefore, the solvency of the debtor has no bearing on the allowance of unsecured creditors’ post-petition legal fees.

Seda is the latest installment in the continued debate among the courts whether to allow an unsecured creditor’s post-petition attorneys’ fees. The Seda Court is of the view that an unsecured creditor cannot recover post-petition legal fees for the foregoing reasons, most notably that the Bankruptcy Code is silent on their provision and public policy disfavors the recovery of one unsecured creditor’s legal expenses incurred during the post-petition period to the prejudice of other unsecured creditors. Depending on the venue of the case, there will undoubtedly be many more instances of unsecured creditors seeking recovery of their post-petition attorneys’ fees in a bankruptcy case until the Supreme Court definitively rules on the issue. Until then, keep asking for that cake . . . .

© 2011 Bracewell & Giuliani LLP

Supreme Court Limits Bankruptcy Court Jurisdiction – Stern v. Marshall

Posted recently at the National Law Review by Prof. G. Ray Warner of Greenberg Traurig, LLP – the latest installment of the Anna Nicole Smith / J. Howard Marshall estate issue and how it impacts the jurisdiction of bankruptcy courts:   

 

In a decision that may create serious problems for bankruptcy case administration, the Supreme Court this morning invalidated part of the Bankruptcy Court jurisdictional scheme. Stern v. Marshall, No. 10-179, 564 U.S. ___ (June 23, 2011). Specifically, the Court held that the Bankruptcy Courts cannot issue final judgments on garden variety state law claims that are asserted as counterclaims by the debtor or trustee against creditors who have filed proofs of claim in the bankruptcy case.

Thus, while the Bankruptcy Court could issue a final order resolving the creditor’s claim against the estate, it could issue only a proposed ruling with respect to the counterclaim. Final judgment on the counterclaim could only be issued by the District Judge after de novo review of any matters to which a party objects. See 28 U.S.C. § 157(c).

In a five-to-four opinion by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court affirmed the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that had reversed an $88 million judgment in favor of Vickie Lynn Marshall (a/k/a Anna Nicole Smith) against E. Pierce Marshall for tortious interference with Vickie’s expectancy of a gift from her late husband J. Howard Marshall, Pierce’s father and one of the richest people in Texas.

The Court’s decision was based on constitutional principles defining the limits of Article III of the U.S. Constitution. Thus, it is likely to have implications that reach far beyond the narrow issue resolved in the instant case. The majority relies on the “public rights” doctrine to define the class of judicial matters that can be resolved by non-Article III tribunals like the Bankruptcy Courts. However, it adopts a narrower view of what constitutes “public rights” than was generally understood prior to this decision.

In addition, although earlier cases could be read to adopt a flexible pragmatic approach to Article III that focused only on significant threats to the Judiciary, Chief Justice Roberts takes a very firm approach, stating, “We cannot compromise the integrity of the system of separated powers and the role of the Judiciary in that system, even with respect to challenges that may seem innocuous at first blush.” Of particular interest, this case focuses on the nature of the Bankruptcy Judge as a non-Article III judge (i.e., no life tenure and no salary protection) and rejects the view that the Bankruptcy Courts are merely “adjuncts” of the Article III District Courts. Note that the “adjunct” construct was one of the foundations of the 1984 Act’s post-Northern Pipeline jurisdictional fix that created the core/non-core distinction. See Northern Pipeline Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U.S. 50 (1982).

The narrow holding is that Bankruptcy Judges, as non-Article III judges, lack constitutional authority to hear and “determine” counterclaims to proofs of claim if the counterclaim involves issues that are not essential to the allowance or disallowance of the claim. Here, although the counterclaim was a compulsory counterclaim, it was a garden variety state law tort claim and did not constitute a defense to the proof of claim. Contrast this with the preference claim involved in Langenkamp v. Culp, 498 U.S. 42 (1990). The receipt of such an unreturned preference is a bar to the allowance of the claim. See 11 U.S.C. 502(d). The opinion also distinguishes Langenkamp (and the earlier pre-Code case of Katchen v. Landy, 382 U.S. 323 (1966)) on the ground that the preference counterclaims in those cases were created by federal bankruptcy law. It is unclear whether that reference establishes a second condition to Bankruptcy Court resolution of counterclaims — i.e., that the counterclaim be based on bankruptcy law in addition to its resolution being essential to claim allowance.

The Court begins its opinion by interpreting the “core” jurisdictional grant of 28 U.S.C. 157(b)(1). The Court finds the provision ambiguous, but rejects the view of the Ninth Circuit that the Bankruptcy Court’s jurisdiction to determine matters involves a two-step process of deciding both whether the matter is “core” and whether it “arises under” the Bankruptcy Code or “arises in” the bankruptcy case. The Court states that such a view incorrectly assumes there are “core” matters that are merely “related to” the bankruptcy case (and which cannot be “determined” by the Bankruptcy Court). The Court states that core proceedings are those that arise in a bankruptcy case or arise under bankruptcy law and that noncore is synonymous with “related.” Thus, since counterclaims to proofs of claim are listed as core in the statute, the Bankruptcy Court has statutory authority to enter final judgment. (Note that the opinion does not explain how a tort claim that arose before the bankruptcy and that was based on non-bankruptcy state law could be a claim “arising in” the bankruptcy case or “arising under” bankruptcy law. Possibly the fact that procedurally it arises as a counterclaim is sufficient to convert a “related” claim into an “arising in” or “arising under” claim. Cf. Langenkamp.)

The Court also rejects the argument that the personal injury tort provision of 28 U.S.C. 157(b)(5) deprives the Bankruptcy Court of jurisdiction to resolve the counterclaim. The Court holds that section 157(b)(5) is not jurisdictional and thus the objection was waived.

Although the statute authorized the Bankruptcy Court to determine the counterclaim, the Court holds that grant violates Article III. The Court rejects the view that the Article III problem was resolved by placing the Bankruptcy Judges in the judicial branch as an “adjunct” to the District Court. The Court focuses on the liberty aspect of Article III and its requirement of judges who are protected by life tenure and salary guarantees. After outlining the extensive jurisdiction of Bankruptcy Judges over matters at law and in equity and their power to issue enforceable orders, the Court states “a court exercising such broad powers is no mere adjunct of anyone.”

The Court then uses the “public rights” doctrine as the test for which matters can be delegated to a non-Article III tribunal. Although Granfinanciera v. Nordberg, 492 U.S. 33 (1989), suggested a balancing test that considered both how closely a matter was related to a federal scheme and the degree of District Court supervision (a test that arguably supports the Bankruptcy Court’s entry of a judgment on a compulsory counterclaim), the Court settles on a new test for public rights limited to “cases in which resolution of the claim at issue derives from a federal regulatory scheme, or in which resolution of the claim by an expert government agency is deemed essential to a limited regulatory objective within the agency’s authority.” The state common law tort counterclaim asserted here does not meet that test. Instead, adjudication of this claim “involves the most prototypical exercise of judicial power.”

Interpreted in the most restrictive fashion, this ruling might create serious problems for case administration. In proof of claim matters, the Bankruptcy Court would be limited to proposed findings on most counterclaims, with the District Court entering the final order after de novo review. Query whether the majority’s limited view of “public rights” would prevent the Bankruptcy Judge from entering final judgment in other disputes that involve the non-bankruptcy rights of non-debtor parties. Bankruptcy Courts regularly resolve inter-creditor disputes and resolve disputes regarding the non-bankruptcy rights of parties to the bankruptcy case in contexts other than claim allowance. Whether the Bankruptcy Court’s exercise of this power is constitutional may turn on how broadly the courts interpret the “cases in which resolution of the claim at issue derives from a federal regulatory scheme” prong of the “public rights” test.

©2011 Greenberg Traurig, LLP. All rights reserved.

 

Standing and In Pari Delicto Issues Arising in Bankruptcy Cases

Congrats to Rui Li of the The University of Iowa College of Law -one of  winners of the Spring 2011 National Law Review Student Legal Writing Competition:   Rui’s topic addresses whether a bankruptcy trustee has standing to bring a suit on behalf of the debtor corporation against attorneys who allegedly helped that corporation’s management with the fraud.  

1.  Introduction

Corporate and managerial fraud is pervasive in today’s economic climate. When fraud leaves a company insolvent and forced to seek protection under the Bankruptcy Code, oftentimes bankruptcy trustees commence legal actions against attorneys to generate recoveries for the benefit of the debtor’s estate. A common scenario goes something like this: A company is in dire financial straits before the fraud or is created as a vehicle for the fraud. The defendant is the corporation’s attorney, who assists the corporation in the fraud. The attorney is hired to ensure the company’s compliance with existing law. The attorney does the bidding of the company’s management in pursuance of their fraud. After the company’s collapse, the bankruptcy trustee sues the attorney for fraud, aiding and abetting fraud and legal malpractice.

Drawing upon the equitable defense that bars recovery by a plaintiff bearing fault with the defendant for the alleged harm, common law principles of agency imputation, and the Constitutional requirement that a plaintiff has standing to sue, a defendant may move to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds that the bankruptcy trustee lacks standing to sue.

This Note provides an analysis of the issue whether the bankruptcy trustee has standing to bring a suit on behalf of the debtor corporation against attorneys who allegedly helped that corporation’s management with the fraud.

2.  The In Pari Delicto Doctrine

a) Background

In pari delicto means “at equal fault.” It is a broadly recognized equitable principle and common law defense that prevents a plaintiff who has participated in wrongdoing from recovering damages resulting from the wrongdoing.[1] The policy behind this doctrine is to prevent one joint wrongdoer from suing another for damages that resulted from their shared wrongdoing.[2] Therefore, if a bankruptcy trustee brings a claim against an attorney on behalf of the corporation, and if the corporation is involved in the corporation’s wrongful conduct which serves as the basis for the claim, the in pari delicto may bar the claim.

The use of the doctrine against bankruptcy trustees emerged in the wave of corporate frauds in the last few decades. This novel application required the introduction of an important new element: agency law. Under agency principles, if the principal acted wrongfully through an agent in the scope of that agency relationship, then the wrongdoing of the agent is attributed to the principal.  Because the acts of corporate managers in the course of their employment are imputed to the corporation, and because a bankruptcy trustee “stands in the shoes” of a debtor corporation, the fraudulent acts of the debtor’s former managers will be imputed to the trustee—unless the trustee can show that management was acting entirely on its own interests and “totally abandoned” those of the corporation to break the chain of imputation.[3]

An analysis of the equitable defense in pari delicto at issue is separable from a standing analysis.[4] “Whether a party has standing to bring claims and whether a party’s claims are barred by an equitable defense are two separate questions, to be addressed on their own terms.”[5]

b)  The Second Circuit’s Approach

In Shearson Lehman Hutton Inc. v. Wagoner, 944 F.2d 114 (2d Cir. 1991), the Second Circuit adopted the controversial approach of treating in pari delicto as a question of standing rather than an affirmative defense. Specifically, the standing analysis in the Second Circuit begins with the issue of whether the trustee can demonstrate that the third party professional injured the debtor in a manner distinct from injuries suffered by the debtor’s creditors.[6] In many jurisdictions, the question of the trustee’s standing ends here.[7] In Wagoner, the Second Circuit went further and added a second inquiry that incorporates the equitable defense ofin pari delicto.[8] By combining these two issues, the Wagoner rule blends the in pari delicto question into a rule of standing.

In Wagoner, the sole stockholder, director, and president of a corporation had used the proceeds of notes to finance fraudulent stock trading.[9] After the corporation became insolvent, the trustee brought claims against the defendant, an investment bank, for breach of fiduciary duty in allowing the company’s president to engage in inappropriate transactions.[10] The court held that because the president participated in the alleged misconduct, his misconduct must be imputed to the corporation and the bankruptcy trustee. This rationale derives from the agency principle that underlies the application of in pari delicto to corporate litigants: the misconduct of managers within the scope of their employment will normally be imputed to the corporation.[11] The court ruled that the trustee lacked standing to sue the investment bank for aiding and abetting the president’s alleged unlawful activity.[12] By adopting the Wagoner rule, the Second Circuit upped the ante by making an equitable defense a threshold question of standing at the motion-to-dismiss stage, rather than an affirmative defense better resolved on summary judgment or at trial.

c)  Approaches of Other Circuits

Although the Wagoner rule still prevails in the Second Circuit, a majority of other courts have declined to follow it, including the First, Third, Fifth, Eighth, Ninth and Eleventh Circuits. These circuits have “declined to conflate the constitutional standing doctrine with the in pari delicto defense.”[13] “Even if an in pari delictodefense appears on the face of the complaint, it does not deprive the trustee of constitutional standing to assert the claim, though the defense may be fatal to the claim.”[14]

The Eighth Circuit held that in pari delicto cannot be used at the dismissal stage.[15] On a motion to dismiss, the court is generally limited to considering the allegations in the complaint, which the court assumes to be true in ruling on the motion.[16] Because in pari delicto is an affirmative defense requiring proof of facts that the defendant asserts, it is usually not an appropriate ground for early dismissal.[17] An in pari delicto defense may be successfully asserted at the pleading stage only where “the facts establishing the defense are: (1) definitively ascertainable from the complaint and other allowable sources of information, and (2) sufficient to establish the affirmative defense with certitude.”[18] Thus, the in pari delicto defense is generally premature at this stage of the litigation, and the court must deny the motion to dismiss.

The existence of a possible defense does not affect the question of standing.[19]Standing is a constitutional question, and all a plaintiff must show is that they have suffered an injury that is fairly traceable to the defendant’s conduct and that the requested relief will likely redress the alleged injury.  In this matter, the First, Third, Fifth, Eighth, and Eleventh Circuits’ approach is more convincing. Those courts hold that whether a trustee has standing to bring a claim and whether the claim is barred by the equitable defense of in pari delicto are two separate questions and that the in pari delicto defense is appropriately set forth in responsive pleadings and the subject of motions for summary judgment and trial.

3.  Standing Issues The Trustees Face 

a)  Background

The next question is whether the bankruptcy trustee fulfills the constitutional requirement of standing. Article III specifies three constitutional requirements for standing. First, the plaintiff must allege that he has suffered or will imminently suffer an injury. Second, he must allege that the injury is traceable to the defendant’s conduct. Third, the plaintiff must show that a favorable federal court decision is likely to redress the injury.[20]

A critical issue in evaluating whether a trustee or receiver has standing to sue is whether the claim belongs to the corporate debtor entity or to the individual investors of the corporate debtor. The Supreme Court held in Caplin v. Marine Midland Grace Trust Co. of New York, 406 U.S. 416, 433-34 (1972), that a bankruptcy trustee has standing to represent only the interests of the debtor corporation and does not have standing to pursue claims for damages against a third party on behalf of one creditor or a group of creditors. Although the line is not always clear between the debtor’s claims, which a trustee has statutory authority to assert, and claims of creditors, which Caplin bars the trustee from pursuing, the focus of the inquiry is on whether the trustee is seeking to redress injuries to the debtor that defendants’ alleged conduct caused.[21]

b)  The Shifting Focus of the Second Circuit

In Wagoner, the Second Circuit held that the corporation and the trustee did not have standing to bring a claim because a “claim against a third party for defrauding a corporation with the cooperation of management accrues to creditors, not to the guilty corporation.”[22] The rationale for this rule is “though a class of creditors has suffered harm, the corporation itself has not.”[23] Without cognizable injury, the trustee representing the debtor corporation failed to meet the constitutional standing requirement.

Commentators have criticized the Wagoner rule that there is no separate injury to the corporation on several grounds. First, the court’s finding that a corporation is not harmed when its assets are squandered effectively ignores the existence of the corporation during the bankruptcy process.[24] Furthermore, the Wagonercourt seems to acknowledge the trustee’s right to sue the guilty managers for damages done to the corporation. Such a construction leads to the absurd result that when management and its accomplices defraud a corporation, management can be sued on behalf of the corporation for the harm caused to the corporation, but the accomplices cannot be sued on behalf of the corporation because the corporation was not harmed.[25] Recognizing the faults of this rule, the Second Circuit recognized that there was “at least a theoretical possibility of some independent financial injury to the debtors” as a result of the defendant’s aid in the fraud.[26] Nevertheless, the court denied the plaintiff’s standing, relying on the observation that any damage suffered by the debtor was passed on to the investors, and “there was likely to be little significant injury that accrues separately to the Debtors.”[27] In other words, most of the alleged injuries in Hirsch were suffered by third parties, not by the debtors themselves. The Second Circuit shifted the focus of the Wagoner rule from lack-of-separate-injury (the first inquiry of theWagoner rule) to the in pari delicto (the second inquiry) in Breeden v. Kirkpatrick & Lockhart LLP, 336 F.3d 94 (2d Cir. 2003). In that case, the court denied the trustee standing, holding that even if there was damage to the corporation, the trustee lacked standing because of the debtor’s collaboration with the corporate insiders.[28]

c)  Approaches of Other Circuits

In Lafferty, the creditors’ committee brought an action against the debtor’s officers, directors and outside professionals, alleging that through participation in a fraudulent Ponzi scheme, the defendants wrongfully prolonged the debtor’s life and incurred debt beyond the debtor’s ability to pay, ultimately forcing the debtor into bankruptcy.[29] The Lafferty court articulated different kinds of harms to the corporation: (1) fraudulent or wrongful prolongation of an insolvent corporation’s life, (2) prolongation that causes the corporation to incur more debt and become more insolvent, and (3) diminution of corporate value had prolongation not occurred.[30] Recognizing that conduct driving a corporation deeper into debt injures not only the corporate creditors, but the corporation itself, the Third Circuit held the committee had standing to sue the outsiders on behalf of the debtor.[31]The court also noted that although the Tenth and Sixth Circuits had applied the in pari delicto doctrine to bar claims of a bankruptcy trustee, those courts assumed that the bankruptcy trustee at least has standing to bring the claim.[32]

The Eighth Circuit held that a trustee who had alleged sufficient injury traceable to the actions of the defendants had standing to sue.[33] The court held that the defendant law firm and attorneys participated in stripping the corporation’s assets and that the injury was traceable to the activities of the lawyers who engineered the transaction to the detriment of their client.[34] In addition, the Eighth Circuit noted that the Third Circuit in Lafferty and the Ninth Circuit (in Smith v. Arthur Andersen LLP 421 F.3d at 1004) rejected the argument that a cause of action for harm to an insolvent corporation belongs to the creditors rather than the corporation. The Eighth Circuit adopted the rationale of Lafferty that simply because the creditors may be the beneficiary of recovery does not transform an action into a suit by the creditors.[35]

The Ninth Circuit found that the trustee had standing to pursue breach of contracts and duties against attorneys, auditors and investment bankers where, if defendants had not concealed the financial condition of debtor, the debtor might have filed for bankruptcy sooner and additional assets might not have been spent on a failing business.[36] “This allegedly wrongful expenditure of corporate assets qualifies as an injury to the firm which is sufficient to confer standing upon the Trustee.”[37] The court stated that “We rely only on the dissipation of assets in reaching the conclusion that the debtor was harmed.”[38] “A receiver has standing to bring a suit on behalf of the debtor corporation against third parties who allegedly helped that corporation’s management harm the corporation.”[39]

To sum up, when a director or officer enlists the help of attorneys to misstate the financial health of a company, it causes significant harm to a corporation. Harms include: (1) the fraudulent and concealed accrual of debt which can lessen the value of corporate property, (2) legal and administrative costs of bankruptcy, (3) operational limitations on profitability, (4) the undermining of business relationships, and (4) failed corporate confidence.

If court were to afford standing to trustee, third parties would be deterred from negligent, reckless, or other wrongful behavior. It will provide a means for increasing attorneys’ liability for the wrongs they commit. While limitless liability for attorneys is not the solution, increasing liability will require attorneys to answer in court when they fail to detect fraud or manipulation on the part of directors and officers that a reasonable attorney would discover.

4.  Conclusion

Attorneys are equipped with the tools to prevent fraud. An attorney may always report fraud to the appropriate authority or refuse to participate in the fraud. However, attorneys may not want to jeopardize important client relationships unless the consequence of inaction makes reporting more beneficial. Given the turmoil of the financial markets since 2008, increased liability for attorneys could help alleviate corporate fraud and bolster consumer confidence in this distressed market.

For the above reasons, the bankruptcy trustee has standing to bring a suit on behalf of the debtor corporation against attorneys who allegedly helped that corporation’s management with the fraud.

 

[1] Terlecky v. Hurd (In re Dublin Sec., Inc.), 133 F.3d 377, 380 (6th Cir.1997).

[2] In re Parmalat Sec. Litig., 383 F. Supp. 2d 587, 596 (S.D.N.Y. 2005).

[3] Wight v. Bank American Corp., 219 F.3d 79, 87 (2d Cir. 2000).

[4] See generally Jeffrey Davis, Ending the Nonsense: the In Pari Delicto Doctrine Has Nothing to Do with What is Section 541 Property of the Bankruptcy Estate, 21 Emory Bankr.Dev. J. 519 (2005); Gerald L. Baldwin, In Pari Delicto Should Not Bar a Trustee’s Recovery, 23-8 Am. Bankr.Inst. J. 8 (2004); Tanvir Alam, Fraudulent Advisors Exploit Confusion in The Bankruptcy Code: How In Pari Delicto Has Been Perverted To Prevent Recovery for Innocent Creditors, 77 Am. Bank. L.J. 305 (2003); Robert T. Kugler, The Role of Imputation and In Pari Delicto in Barring Claims Against Third Parties, 1 No. 14 Andrews Bankr.Litig. Rep. 13 (2004);Making Sense of the In Pari Delicto Defense: “Who’s Zoomin’ Who?” 23 No. 11 Bankr. Law Letter 1 (Nov.2003).

[5] Official Comm. of Unsecured Creditors v. R.F. Lafferty & Co.,267 F.3d 340, 346-47 (3d Cir.2001).

[6] Wagoner, 944 F.2d at 118.

[7] R.F. Lafferty & Co., 267 F.3d at 340.

[8] Wagoner, 944 F.2d at 118.

[9] Id. at 116.

[10] Id. at 116-17.

[11] Wight, 219 F.3d at 86.

[12] Wagoner, 944 F.2d at 120.

[13] In re Senior Cottages of America LLC, 482 F.3d 997, 1003 (8th Cir. 2007) (collecting cases).

[14] Id. at 1004.

[15] Id. at 1002.

[16] Wilchombe v. Tee Vee Toons. Inc., 555 F.3d 949, 959 (11th Cir. 2009).

[17] Knauer v. Jonathon Roberts Financial Group, Inc., 348 F.3d 230, 237 n. 6 (7th Cir. 2003).

[18] Gray v. Evercore Restructuring, LLC, 544 F.3d 320, 325 (1st Cir. 2008).

[19] Novartis Seeds, Inc. v. Monsanto Co., 190 F.3d 868, 872 (8th Cir. 1999).

[20] Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 756-58 (1984).

[21] Smith v. Arthur Andersen, LLP, 421 F.3d 989, 1002 (9th Cir. 2005).

[22] Wagoner, 944 F.2d at 120.

[23] Id.

[24] Jeffrey Davis, Ending the Nonsense: The In Pari Delicto Doctrine Has Nothing to Do with What Is § 541 Property of the Bankruptcy Estate, 21 Emory Bankr. Dev. J. 519, 525 (2005).

[25] Id. at 527.

[26] Hirsch v. Arthur Andersen & Co., 72 F.3d 1085, 1087 (2d Cir. 1995).

[27] Id.

[28] Id. at 100.

[29] Lafferty Co., 267 F.3d at 348-49.

[30] Id.

[31] Id. at 354.

[32] Id. at 358.

[33] In re Senior Cottages Of America, LLC, 482 F.3d 997.

[34] Id.

[35] Id. at 1001.

[36] Smith v. Arthur Andersen, LLP, 421 F.3d at 1003 (9th Cir. 2005).

[37] Id.

[38] Id. at 1004.

[39] Id.

© Copyright 2011 Rui Li