The CARES Act and corresponding paycheck protection program (PPP) provisions continue to provide fertile ground for discourse concerning policy implications and legislative intent amid an unprecedented pandemic, according to an analysis by David M. Barlow of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Arizona in Phoenix. In the early months of implementing the CARES Act’s PPP provisions, the bankruptcy world was particularly fraught with such debate. Courts across the country grappled with the SBA’s authority to enforce rules prohibiting access to the $659 billion of relief afforded to small businesses solely based on their status as debtors in bankruptcy. Although that phase of litigation appears to have concluded, debtors who received PPP loans and are now seeking loan forgiveness may need to clear a new hurdle. Specifically, lenders of the PPP loans may refuse to process a borrower’s application for loan forgiveness because the applicant’s filing of bankruptcy constituted a default under the terms contained in the PPP loans. Despite going to a lot of places and engaging in what has affectionately been referred to by one commentator as the “SBA Tango,” debtors may end up somewhere they have already been: in front of a bankruptcy court seeking the relief necessary to have their PPP loan forgiven.
