SDNY Bankruptcy Court Holds Attorney/Client Retainer Is Sufficient to Establish Chapter 11 Eligibility
On Feb. 1, 2022, Hon. David S. Jones of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York denied a motion to dismiss the chapter 11 cases of JPA No. 111 Co. Ltd. and JPA No. 49 Co. Ltd. (together, the “debtors”), each a Japanese single-purpose entity — finding that the debtors’ reversionary interest in unused retainer funds held by the debtors’ chapter 11 counsel established sufficient “ties” to the U.S. for purposes of chapter 11 eligibility under § 109 of the Bankruptcy Code [1].