Over the past several years, much has been written about how numerous bankruptcy courts have interpreted and enforced bankruptcy and insolvency-related provisions in intercreditor agreements, subordination agreements and other “agreements among lenders” when they may affect a debtor and its estate. Although the Bankruptcy Code itself provides little guidance, the emerging trend has been for bankruptcy courts to strictly enforce intercreditor agreements according to their clear and unambiguous terms, rather than allow for broader interpretations…

Starting now, all creditors must exercise more caution when trying to collect against discharged bankruptcy debtors, because a creditor’s good faith belief that the discharge injunction did not apply is no longer a viable defense. On Monday, June 3, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court clarified the standard for awarding sanctions against a creditor for violation of the discharge injunction, unanimously holding that a court may hold a creditor in civil contempt for violating a discharge…

Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code (“UCC”) has become highly technical, reflecting the complexity of modern secured transactions and the intricate relationships of debtors, secured parties and others who have or may have interests in a debtor’s assets.  Some of its rules, however, seem relatively easy to understand and apply. One of those is the rule that protects buyers who buy goods in the ordinary course of business, allowing such buyers to make purchases…

Executors have a duty to gather all of the assets of the decedent’s estate and prepare an inventory of the assets and debts. In days of old, this meant obtaining paper files that had been in the possession of the deceased. The digital world changed all that. Digital content is generally held, not by the owner of the information, but by a third-party custodian. The custodian of digital assets has an obligation to protect against…

Justice Kavanaugh’s first authored opinion as a Supreme Court Justice in Henry Schein, Inc. v. Archer and White Sales, Inc., No. 17-1272, 586 U.S. ____ (2019) further cements the Supreme Court’s stance on arbitration. Over the years, the Supreme Court has consistently held in favor of arbitration and rejected attempts by parties and the lower courts to ignore binding arbitration clauses. For instance, in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 131 S. Ct. 1740 (April…

Long before eMortgages, electronic signatures, and mobile apps hit the secured lending scene, Lord Nottingham proposed that the English Parliament pass An Act for Prevention of Frauds and Perjuries in 1677 to prevent nonexistent agreements from being “proved” through false testimony. That statute and its progeny remain an important resource in today’s financial services industry. All states have adopted a version of the statute of frauds and many states have enacted statutes of frauds specifically…

One of the key provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act rollback law signed by President Trump on May 24, 2018, hasn’t met its early promise for U.S. community banks. Recently proposed rules to implement simplified capital requirements have fallen short of the industry’s expectations when the bank deregulation law was enacted in May. On November 21, 2018, the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency jointly…