Senator Elizabeth Warren (among others) recently re-introduced a bill to “fundamentally reform” the private-equity system “by closing the legal, tax, and regulatory loopholes that allow private equity firms to capture all the rewards of their investments while insulating themselves from risk.” [1] If enacted, the legislation will greatly impact several critical features of the Bankruptcy Code, disrupt the restructuring process more broadly, and likely inspire costly litigation (and compliance measures).
Nonconsensual third-party releases in bankruptcy are the hot topic of debate recently. Even though there is no provision of the Bankruptcy Code that expressly authorizes these releases, no Code provision prohibits them, either. Therefore (drumroll), different circuits have different views on third-party releases, and because Congress is not always hot and heavy on the Bankruptcy Code, these splits tend to slowly get worked out in the appellate court process.