In bankruptcy, prepetition loans made by insiders are often investigated, and sometimes challenged, by debtors, creditors’ committees, or trustees. The two most frequent challenges brought are that (1) the loans in question are not really debt and should be recharacterized as equity, and (2) the debt should be equitably subordinated below the claims of all or some other

The Summer 2012 edition of the Absolute Priority newsletter, published by the Bankruptcy & Restructuring group at Cooley LLP, of which I am a member, has now been released. The newsletter gives updates on current developments and trends in the bankruptcy and workout area. Follow the links in this sentence to access a copy of the

Recently, I posted about SIPA liquidations of brokerage firms, prompted by the Securities Investor Protection Act (known as SIPA) liquidations of Lehman Brothers, Inc. and Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. An interesting issue has come up in the Madoff case involving investors who redeemed their accounts before the Madoff bankruptcy was filed. In other alleged

Leveraged buyouts, known as LBOs, have frequently been the subject of fraudulent transfer challenges when the target company later files bankruptcy. As its name implies, the classic LBO involves the use of leverage — debt — to finance the acquisition of the target company’s stock. Often that new debt is secured by the assets