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The ad hoc shareholder committee of bankrupt SunEdison has filed an objection to the company's disclosure statement in bankruptcy court, the St. Louis Business Journal reported yesterday. The committee, which represents at least 8 percent of SunEdison's outstanding shares, said that it has waited to obtain basic information about the assets and liabilities in the case but that SunEdison's disclosure statement serves "only to darken the murky factual waters of these cases.” Maryland Heights-based SunEdison filed for bankruptcy in April 2016.

In an opinion issued on March 30, 2017, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that two suppliers who had sold electrical materials to a bankrupt contractor had violated the automatic stay by asserting a construction lien against the owner of the development where the contractor had installed the materials supplied, The National Law Review reported yesterday. Cooper Electrical Supply Co. and Samson Electrical Supply Co. sold Linear Electric Co. Inc. various electrical materials, which Linear incorporated into several construction-development projects. The development owners had not fully paid Linear for its work on these projects, and Linear had not fully paid the suppliers for their materials. Linear filed a voluntary petition for chapter 11 relief, and two weeks later the suppliers filed construction liens on the property owned by the developers. Linear filed a motion to discharge the liens as violating the automatic stay that arose upon the filing of its bankruptcy petition. The bankruptcy court granted the motion, holding that the construction liens were void ab initio for violation of the automatic stay. The District Court affirmed, and the suppliers then appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. After disposing of issues raised on appeal concerning alleged mootness and the scope of the bankruptcy court’s judicial power, the court turned to the merits of the stay issue. The court was faced with the question of whether a supplier can file a construction lien under New Jersey law when the contractor has filed a petition for bankruptcy, which automatically stays any act to create or perfect any lien against the contractor’s property. The court held that the filing of the liens did violate the automatic stay, because the liens were against Linear’s property, since the claim payment process allowed the suppliers to collect their recovery through reduction of the accounts receivable that were due to Linear from the property owner.

 

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