structured dismissals Archives - The National Law Forum

On March 22, 2017 the Supreme Court issued its long-awaited ruling regarding the legality of structured dismissals of Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases that would make final distributions of estate assets to creditors in a manner that deviates from the Bankruptcy Code’s statutory priority distribution scheme.¹ In Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corp., the Court held that such a structured dismissal was forbidden, absent the consent of the negatively affected parties. However, the Court did not bar all distributions of estate assets which violate the priority distribution scheme, suggesting that interim distributions that serve a broader Code objective such as enhancing the chances of a successful reorganization might be allowed, meaning that important bankruptcy tools like critical vendor orders and first-day employee wage orders are still viable.

In Jevic, the debtor was taken over by an investor in a leveraged buy-out (“LBO”), with money borrowed from a bank. The LBO added a significant and ultimately unsustainable level of the debt to the company. Shortly before the bankruptcy, Jevic ceased operations and fired all of its employees. A group of those laid-off employees (the truck drivers) filed a lawsuit against Jevic and the investor for violations of the federal WARN Act.² The employees prevailed in the WARN Act litigation against Jevic and obtained a $12.4 million judgment, $8.3 million of which was entitled to priority status in Jevic’s bankruptcy case because it was for wages. As the holders of a priority claim, the truck drivers were entitled to be paid before any of the general unsecured creditors in the Jevic bankruptcy. The employees also had a WARN Act claim pending against the investor, the acquirer in the LBO. During the bankruptcy, the unsecured creditors’ committee sued the investor and the bank for fraudulent transfer claims arising from the LBO. While those cases were pending, and during the bankruptcy, several constituencies attempted to negotiate a resolution to the case with a plan of reorganization, but that effort failed. Ultimately everyone but the truck drivers agreed to a settlement regarding the fraudulent transfer claims and distribution of estate property and a structured dismissal of the bankruptcy case.³ The settlement excluded the truck drivers from any recovery, but did provide some recovery to consenting lower-priority unsecured creditors.

The truck drivers and the United States Trustee objected to the structured dismissal since it deviated from the Code’s priority rules. However the Bankruptcy Court approved it, and was affirmed by both the District Court and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Those courts reasoned that under the settlement and structured dismissal, there would be at least some recovery to some priority and general unsecured creditors—even if not to the bypassed truck drivers—whereas otherwise no one but the secured creditor would get anything.. The truck drivers could not really complain, those courts concluded, because they would have gotten nothing regardless. Furthermore, those courts did not believe that the absolute priority rule applied to a dismissal.

The Supreme Court, however, reversed the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and concluded that in a final distribution of estate assets, by whatever mechanism, the Code’s priority rules must be respected, absent the consent of adversely affected parties.

However, the Court narrowly tailored its ruling, stating that strict compliance with the priority rules is only required in a final distribution of estate assets upon the conclusion of the bankruptcy case, whether via liquidation, plan confirmation, sale of assets, or dismissal. The Court noted that during a reorganization case, bankruptcy courts routinely approve interim distributions of estate assets in ways that violate the priority distribution scheme. For example, in almost every chapter 11 case, debtors seek the ability to pay their employees for pre-petition wages that are accrued but unpaid on the petition date. In some cases, debtors also seek critical vendor orders that allow them to pay certain key suppliers the pre-petition amounts due so that those suppliers will continue to ship goods or provide services during the bankruptcy case. The Court distinguished these interim priority-violating distributions from the one at issue in Jevic because the interim distributions served the goal of the bankruptcy system: the rehabilitation of debtors. Priority-violating final distributions made pursuant to structured dismissals do not serve that goal.

Jevic’s ruling will drastically curtail the growing trend of structured dismissals, eliminating some wiggle room bankruptcy stakeholders had in fashioning a resolution to a case outside a plan of reorganization. No longer can recalcitrant groups of creditors be threatened with being squeezed out of any distribution if they won’t cave in and agree to play ball; they can insist on their priority rights. However, the ruling still preserves the flexibility that has developed in chapter 11 cases to allow debtors to attempt to reorganize their business and protect parties that are willing to work with debtors during the bankruptcy.

ARTICLE BY Tamar N. Dolcourt & Gjina Lucaj of Foley & Lardner LLP

^{1 Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corp., 580 U.S. ___ (2017); 2017 WL 1066259.}

^{2 The WARN Act is the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. Among other things, the WARN Act requires companies to give workers facing a mass layoff at least 60 days’ notice of the layoff, or pay their wages for the 60 day period. 29 U.S.C. 2102.}

^{3 The truck drivers were excluded because they would not agree to drop their WARN Act claims against the investor, who was a party to the settlement.}

In a prior post, we discussed the Third Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in Jevic Holding Corp., where the court upheld the use of so-called “structured dismissals” in bankruptcy cases, and the Supreme Court’s grant of certiorari. On December 7th, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Jevic. The Court’s ultimate ruling will likely have a significant impact upon bankruptcy practice.

Under the Jevic structured dismissal, unsecured creditors received a distribution from a settlement reached between the official committee of unsecured creditors and secured lenders. Wage priority claimants received nothing from the settlement, notwithstanding their senior position under the Bankruptcy Code. The bankruptcy court approved the structured dismissal, and by extension the distribution provided for in the settlement, and the district court affirmed on appeal. The Third Circuit also upheld the structured dismissal, holding that the bankruptcy court has discretion to approve structured dismissals except if there is a showing “that the structured dismissal has been contrived to evade the procedural protections and safeguards of the plan confirmation or conversion process.”

Jevic put front and center two competing concerns in bankruptcy. On its face, the Jevic structured dismissal appears to conflict with the priority rules set forth in section 507 of the Bankruptcy Code, since junior creditors were paid while certain senior creditors were not. However, the structured dismissal approved in Jevic also arguably maximized creditor recoveries, albeit in a way that skipped over certain senior creditors. The estate was administratively insolvent and without the structured dismissal, the case would have been converted to Chapter 7 and distributions would have been significantly reduced.

The questions posed yesterday to counsel for Petitioners and counsel for Respondents, as well as to government counsel as amicus curiae, were wide-ranging and pointed. Justice Breyer questioned the statutory basis for the structured dismissal, noting that while no Code provision forbid it, no specific Code provision permitted it either. Justice Kennedy looked for guidance on the “for cause” standard under section 349(b), which permits bankruptcy courts to modify the effect of dismissal orders. Justice Sotomayor expressed concern that there was collusion in Jevic among senior and junior creditors to the detriment of other creditors. Several Justices expressed concern with Respondents’ position that section 363(b) afforded sufficient discretion to the bankruptcy court to approve a distribution that was at odds with the Code’s priority scheme. According to Respondents, Jevic presented the extraordinary circumstances required by section 363(b) to deviate from the absolute priority rule since no plan was possible and conversion to Chapter 7 would lead to little, if any, distribution. Justice Sotomayor questioned Respondents’ position that Jevic was a rare case, and Justice Kennedy took a similar position, noting that it is not rare for there to be no prospect of a confirmable plan, a fact cited by Respondents in support of the Jevic structured dismissal.

Predicting the outcome of cases simply from oral argument is imperfect and notoriously dangerous. Nonetheless, some commentators have opined that a sufficient number of Justices appear to be sufficiently concerned with the Jevic structured dismissal that the Third Circuit’s opinion is in peril. If the Court reverses the Third Circuit, the question becomes how sweeping the Court’s opinion will be.

A reversal may well imperil so-called “gift plans”, where a secured creditor makes a payment to junior creditor (the “gift”) in order to obtain support for plan confirmation. The gift allows the junior creditor to obtain a recovery at odds with the Bankruptcy Code’s priority scheme. If the Court holds that the priority scheme governs all estate distributions, depending upon the scope of the Supreme Court’s opinion, gift plans may not be permitted.

In addition, if the Court rules that the section 507 priority scheme applies to the entirety of a bankruptcy case, such a holding would conceivably threaten the viability of orders that even Petitioners concede are customary in commercial reorganizations, such as wage payment orders and critical vendor orders. Those represent instances where estate property is distributed in violation of the Code’s priority scheme, but in reliance on the so-called “Doctrine of Necessity,” where payments serve the overall goal of maximizing the debtor’s going concern value to create the possibility of greater distribution to creditors than does liquidation.

In fact, the Court seemed to struggle with how far its ruling should go, asking the parties what was the scope of the holding they wanted the Court to enter. Counsel for Petitioners was careful to limit the scope of the holding so as to carve out common Chapter 11 practices, such as wage payment and critical vendor orders. This was in contrast to counsel for the government who said that it was the government’s view that pre-plan distributions in Chapter 11 that violate the priority scheme “are not permissible under any circumstances unless there is consent of the impaired priority claimholder.” Depending upon the scope of the Court’s opinion, regular and customary Chapter 11 practices, such as critical vendor motions and pre-petition wage motions, may no longer be permitted.

ARTICLE BY Mark A. Salzberg of Squire Patton Boggs (US) LLP

Tag: structured dismissals

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