New York City Lawyers’ Group Fights Bankruptcy Venue Bill (The Wall Street Journal)
The Wall Street Journal, January 30, 2018
New York City Lawyers’ Group Fights Bankruptcy Venue Bill [subscription required]
“The New York City Bar Association is fighting a proposal in Congress that would force companies to file for bankruptcy closer to their headquarters, saying it would take away a company’s ability to file for chapter 11 protection ‘in the jurisdiction that best protects its enterprise value.’ In a letter sent Monday, a bar association committee told Sens. John Cornyn (R., Texas) and Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) that their proposal would send bankruptcy cases to “less experienced jurisdictions with potentially less predictable and conflicting law.” Since the last overhaul of chapter 11 in 1978, courts across the country have adopted different rules, including on transferring intellectual property licensing agreements to buyers. ‘Forcing debtors to file in districts with adverse law at the circuit level will risk the loss of millions or tens of millions of enterprise value—all to the loss of the creditors, the employees and the communities the venue bill is supposed to help,’ committee members said in the letter.”
