Pictured:  Reno Nevada’s The Villages at Lakeridge, a great investment for non-statutory insiders, or for anyone else!!

Last April, we updated you that the Supreme Court had granted review of In re The Village at Lakeridge, LLC, 814 F.3d 993 (9th Cir. 2016). Our most recent post is here.

On March 5, 2018, the Supreme Court held a clear-error standard of review should apply to a review of a determination of non-statutory insider status. U.S. Bank Nat. Ass’n v. Vill. at Lakeridge, LLC, No. 15-1509, ___ S. Ct. ___2018 WL 1143822, at *2 (U.S. Mar. 5, 2018).

As a refresher, in Village at Lakeridge, in exchange for $5,000, an insider (Bartlett) transferred a $2.76 million claim against the debtor to an individual (Rabkin) who was not a statutory

Happy 2018!  We at The Bankruptcy Cave have been itching to write about the Cherry Growers Chapter 11 case – which really is ground-breaking – but the holidays, life, and yes, work for clients too, all just got in the way.  But with each passing week, the case stayed on our minds.  So now that time permits, here is the writeup – and see below for the remarkable significance of the case.

In re Cherry Growers (now reported at 576 B.R. 569, Bankr. W.D. Mich. 2017), is a garden-variety produce-related bankruptcy case.  (Ha ha, “garden-variety” produce, get it?)  The Debtor bought produce and sold it to others, in addition to conducting other food distribution activities.  When the Debtor filed for bankruptcy, there was the typical push-and-pull between a lender secured by the Debtor’s inventory and a/r, and a supplier claiming a trust interest in those same assets, protected by the Read More

Courts and professionals have wrestled for years with the appropriate approach to use in setting the interest rate when a debtor imposes a chapter 11 plan on a secured creditor and pays the creditor the value of its collateral through deferred payments under section 1129(b)(2)(A)(i)(II) of the Bankruptcy Code.  Secured lenders gained a major victory on October 20, 2017, when the Second Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that a market rate of interest is preferred to a so-called “formula approach” in chapter 11, when an efficient market exists.  In re MPM Silicones (Momentive), LLC, 2017 WL 4700314 (2d Cir. Oct. 20, 2017).

In Momentive, the bankruptcy court categorically dismissed expert testimony presented by the lenders to demonstrate a market rate of 5-6+%.  Because the debtor had offered to cash out the lenders (and prepared to borrow the funds necessary to do it), there was direct evidence of the