·        The Means Test is the standard adopted in the 2005 amendments to the Bankruptcy Code to prevent individual high wage earners from filing a Chapter 7 liquidation. However, if more than half of the individual’s debt is related to a failed business, the Means Test may not apply, thus making them eligible to file [...]

I got this notice from a bankruptcy practitioner with the international firm of Salans (offices in France, United-Kingdom, Germany, Spain, USA, Poland, Russian Federation, Hungary, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Romania, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkey, China) regarding the most recent changes to the bankruptcy laws in Russia.  This report states: “Readers will recall, on December 30, [...]

The US Supreme Court allowed the Chrysler sale to proceed, thus granting the current administration’s plan for the company’s assets to be sold to Fiat.  (I still cannot wait to see how your local Chrysler service bay handles warranty work on a Fiat product, once they arrive.)  From the e mails and other information which [...]

 A new law, which would amend the Bankruptcy Code to allow the reduction, with court approval only, of a home mortgage to the amount of the home’s value, was defeated in the US Senate yesterday.  The result of the law would have been to allow many homeowners to remain in their homes while making payments [...]

The US House of Representatives, specifically, the Committee on the Judiciary, held a hearing on the topic of why corporate Chapter 11 cases fail so much more often after the 2005 amendments to the Bankruptcy Code.   Here is a link to the Congressional web site where one may access all of the transcripts of those [...]

Arguably, one source of the mortgage meltdown was the 2005 change to the bankruptcy laws pushed through by the credit card lobby.  The President’s current plan of recovery provides that the laws may be changed to allow modifications to mortgages in bankruptcy, thus allowing an alternative to either making full payments plus monthly payments on [...]

In the case of Milavetz, Gallop & Milavetz, et al. v. The United States of America, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a provision of the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act violates the free speech rights of lawyers, stating the provision “prevents attorneys from fulfilling their duty to clients [...]

Amid rumors first reported in the Wall Street Journal on July 21, 2008, Mervyns has refused to comment on any plans to file bankruptcy. However, the company recently stopped providing its financial information to credit-monitoring firms, leading to speculation that the chain may file for bankruptcy protection.
Bob Carbonell, chief credit officer of Bernard Sands, a [...]

Although Judge Jeffrey Hoskins was acquitted of all 15 criminal charges (eight in December 2006 and the remaining seven in August 2007), he incurred numerous attorney fees. On March 26, 2008 Judge Hoskins and his wife filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection in Ohio. In a civil suit, Hoskins was ordered to pay [...]

On August 29, 2007 Public Defender Service attorney Liyah Brown had a criminal hearing before D.C. Superior Court Judge John Bayly, Jr. During the hearing the two entered into an argument about whether or not the Defendant was in deed “a homeless man”. Bayly told Brown to “be quiet” and he would “call [...]