Rochelle: Something for Both Creditors and Debtors in Lower Court Decisions This Fall

The following is taken from Rochelle's Daily Wire: District, BAP and Bankruptcy Court Edition. Read the analysis and commentary on lower court decisions from the past four months by ABI's Editor at Large Bill Rochelle.

Among the courts of appeals whose decisions we reviewed last week, the Third and Ninth Circuits came out on top with the most intriguing opinions. Turning to the lower courts, the Second and Seventh Circuits take top awards. In the Second Circuit, district judges made life moderately more difficult for corporate debtors in reorganization, while the Seventh Circuit is on the cusp of deciding whether nonbankrupts can find refuge in an affiliate's chapter 11 case. Viewed in this light, the opinions from both circuits can be seen as protecting creditors.

Continue reading this and more than 20 other summaries from Rochelle's Daily Wire: District, BAP and Bankruptcy Court Edition! Click here to download a FREE compendium of this compilation as well as the compendium of significant circuit court decisions from the past three months. Also receive a complimentary month-long subscription to Rochelle's Daily Wire when it launches Jan. 4!

Study: Lender Discrimination May Be Pushing Black Churches Into Bankruptcy

A long line of research shows that black consumers pay higher rates for credit, including mortgages and car loans, and a new study suggests the same kind of financial discrimination may apply to black churches, Bloomberg News reported today. Of the 654 religious congregations to file for chapter 11 protection between 2006 and 2013, 60 percent had black pastors or predominantly black membership, according to a just-published paper by Pamela Foohey, an associate professor at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law. Meanwhile, black churches make up only 21 percent of U.S. congregations, according to a 2012 analysis. The large number of reorganizations may be the result of black churches paying higher rates for real estate loans, including "balloon, step increase, and other 'weird' mortgages -- the equivalent of subprime loans," writes Foohey, who sifted through 80,000 bankruptcy petitions and interviewed more than 100 church leaders and bankruptcy lawyers for her draft study. Read more.

She will present her paper (forthcoming in the ABI Law Review) at the AALS Annual Meeting on January 9 in New York.

Number of Public Companies Filing for Bankruptcy Highest Since 2012, according to BankruptcyData.com

The total number of public companies that filed for chapter 11 or chapter 7 bankruptcy is the highest since 2012, according to BankruptcyData.com. There were 77 public company filings according to yesterday's report, which is the most since the 86 filings recorded in 2012. The data also shows that there have been 18 cases filed this year that had more than $1 billion in pre-petition assets. Ten of these large debtors this year were in the energy business.

Foreclosure Starts Fall to Lowest Since April 2006

Black Knight Financial Services released a report yesterday showing that the number of homes that had foreclosure proceedings started against them hit the lowest level in nine years in the month of November, HousingWire.com reported. According to Black Knight's "First Look" at November's mortgage performance data, there were only 66,000 foreclosure starts in the month of November, the lowest total since April 2006. That's down 9.02 percent from October and down 9.76 percent from Nov. 2014. Additionally, the inventory of loans in foreclosure continued to decline in November, falling 21 percent year-over-year to 1.38 percent. The year-over-year decline means that there were 185,000 fewer loans in foreclosure in Nov. 2015 than there were in Nov. 2014.

USTP Announces Notice of Public Hearing and Reopened Comment Period for Proposed Procedures for Completing Uniform Periodic Reports in Non-Small Business Cases Filed Under Chapter 11 of Title 11

The U.S. Trustee Program (USTP) on Nov. 10 published in the Federal Register a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) seeking public comment on the proposed rules requiring uniform periodic reports by debtors-in-possession or trustees in non-small business cases under chapter 11 and the proposed periodic report forms. After analyzing the comments to the NPRM and proposed forms, and because certain public commenters asked to meet with representatives of the USTP to discuss the NPRM and proposed forms, the USTP decided to hold a public hearing on Feb. 17, 2016, from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. ET in the Executive Conference Center in the Executive Office for U.S. Trustees in Washington, DC. The hearing on the NPRM will provide an opportunity for interested parties to express their views directly to USTP officials. The USTP has also reopened the comment period and will accept new and supplemental comments from the public on or before Feb. 22, 2016, via www.regulations.gov. Those who register to attend and make a presentation at the public hearing must have either a written comment or statement on file by the registration deadline of Jan. 6, 2016. For more information, please click here.