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Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions,bankruptcy is imposed by a court order,often initiated by the debtor.
Debt restructuring is a process that allows a private or public company or a sovereign entity facing cash flow problems and financial distress to reduce and renegotiate its delinquent debts to improve or restore liquidity so that it can continue its operations.
In the United States,bankruptcy is largely governed by federal law,commonly referred to as the "Bankruptcy Code" ("Code"). The United States Constitution authorizes Congress to enact "uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States". Congress has exercised this authority several times since 1801,including through adoption of the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978,as amended,codified in Title 11 of the United States Code and the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA).
Martin Lipton is an American lawyer,a founding partner of the law firm of Wachtell,Lipton,Rosen &Katz specializing in advising on mergers and acquisitions and matters affecting corporate policy and strategy. From 1958–1978 he taught courses on Federal Regulation of Securities and Corporation Law as a Lecturer and Adjunct Professor of Law at New York University School of Law.
Arthur J. Gonzalez is a senior fellow at New York University School of Law and member of the PROMESA oversight board in charge of resolving the Puerto Rican government-debt crisis. Before his retirement from the bench,he was chief judge of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.
Todd Joseph Zywicki is an American lawyer,legal scholar and educator. He is a George Mason University Foundation Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law,teaching in the areas of bankruptcy and contracts.
The Bankruptcy Act of 1898 was the first United States Act of Congress involving bankruptcy to give companies an option of being protected from creditors. Previous attempts at federal bankruptcy laws had lasted,at most,a few years.
Chapter 9,Title 11,United States Code is a chapter of the United States Bankruptcy Code,available exclusively to municipalities and assisting them in the restructuring of their debt. On July 18,2013,Detroit,Michigan became the largest city in the history of the United States to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection. Jefferson County,Alabama,in 2011,and Orange County,California,in 1994,are also notable examples. The term 'municipality' denotes "a political subdivision or public agency or instrumentality of a State," but does not include a state itself. States are therefore unable to file for bankruptcy,even though they have defaulted in their obligations.
William Kurt Black is an American lawyer,academic,author,and a former bank regulator. Black's expertise is in white-collar crime,public finance,regulation,and other topics in law and economics. He developed the concept of "control fraud",in which a business or national executive uses the entity he or she controls as a "weapon" to commit fraud.
Douglas Gordon Baird is an American legal scholar,the Harry A. Bigelow Distinguished Service Professor and a former dean of the University of Chicago Law School. He joined the faculty in 1980 and served as the dean from 1994-1999. He is a leader in the field of bankruptcy law.
Mark J. Roe is the David Berg Professor of Law at Harvard Law School,appointed in 2001.
The history of bankruptcy law in the United States refers primarily to a series of acts of Congress regarding the nature of bankruptcy. As the legal regime for bankruptcy in the United States developed,it moved from a system which viewed bankruptcy as a quasi-criminal act,to one focused on solving and repaying debts for people and businesses suffering heavy losses.
Frank Partnoy is a Professor of Law at the University of California Berkeley School of Law. He was a peachwad George E. Barrett Professor of Law and Finance and the founding director of the Center on Corporate and Securities Law at the University of San Diego,where he taught for 21 years. He is a scholar of the complexities of modern finance and financial market regulation. He worked as a derivatives structurer at Morgan Stanley and CS First Boston during the mid-1990s and wrote F.I.A.S.C.O.:Blood in the Water on Wall Street,a book about his experiences there.
John Anthony Edwards Pottow is the John Philip Dawson Collegiate Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School,specializing in international commercial law,bankruptcy and consumer finance. In addition to scholarship,Pottow is known for pro bono work and has argued pro bono cases before the United States Supreme Court and several United States Courts of Appeals,winning an award for pro bono service. His public service in international trade law includes service on the United States Delegation to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) and the State Department's Advisory Committee on Private International Law.
William Gordon Mathews was a Federal judge and lawyer from Charleston,West Virginia,serving as Referee in Bankruptcy for Kanawha,West Virginia 1898-1908,and Clerk of the Court for Kanawha 1903-1904.
The Puerto Rican government-debt crisis was a financial crisis affecting the government of Puerto Rico. The crisis began in 2014 when three major credit agencies downgraded several bond issues by Puerto Rico to "junk status" after the government was unable to demonstrate that it could pay its debt. The downgrading,in turn,prevented the government from selling more bonds in the open market. Unable to obtain the funding to cover its budget imbalance,the government began using its savings to pay its debt while warning that those savings would eventually be exhausted. To prevent such a scenario,the United States Congress enacted a law known as PROMESA,which appointed an oversight board with ultimate control over the Commonwealth's budget. As the PROMESA board began to exert that control,the government sought to increase revenues and reduce its expenses by increasing taxes while curtailing public services and reducing government pensions. Those measures further compounded the crisis by provoking social distrust and unrest. In August 2018,a debt investigation report of the Financial Oversight and management board for Puerto Rico reported the Commonwealth had $74 billion in bond debt and $49 billion in unfunded pension liabilities as of May 2017. Puerto Rico officially exited bankruptcy on March 15,2022.
Eric LeCompte is an American commentator on politics,finance and religion. He serves on a working group with the UN Conference on Trade and Development. He is the current executive director of Jubilee USA Network. Prior to working with Jubilee USA,he served as the event coordinator at School of the Americas Watch.
The Puerto Rico Oversight,Management,and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) is a U.S. federal law enacted in 2016 that established a financial oversight board,a process for restructuring debt,and expedited procedures for approving critical infrastructure projects in order to combat the Puerto Rican government-debt crisis. Through PROMESA,the US Congress established an appointed Fiscal Control Board (FCB),known colloquially in Puerto Rico as "la junta," to oversee the debt restructuring. With this protection the then-governor of Puerto Rico,Alejandro García Padilla,suspended payments due on July 1,2016. The FCB's approved fiscal austerity plan for 2017-2026 cut deeply into Puerto Rico's public service budget,including cuts to health care,pensions,and education,in order to repay creditors. By May 2017,with $123 billion in debt owed by the Puerto Rican government and its corporations,the FCB requested the "immediate" appointment of a federal judge to resolve the "largest bankruptcy case in the history of the American public bond market."
Gordon Phillips is an American financial economist,currently at Tuck School of Business,Dartmouth College. He obtained his bachelor's degree at Northwestern University in 1986 and his Ph.D. and M.A. from Harvard University in 1991.
Financial Oversight and Management Bd. for Puerto Rico v. Aurelius Investment,LLC,590 U.S. ___ (2020),was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that appointments to the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico are not subject to the restrictions in the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The Court held that all officers of the United States are subject to the Appointments Clause even if their duties relate to Puerto Rico. However,the power they exercise must be primarily federal in nature for the Clause to apply. If the officer exercises powers primarily of a local nature,even if created by federal law,then the officer is not "of the United States" and is exempt from compliance with the Clause. As members of the Board are primarily concerned with the governance of Puerto Rico,even though their decisions have potentially nationwide consequences,their powers are primarily local in nature and need not be appointed in compliance with the Clause.
References
- 1 2 "President Obama Announces the Appointment of Seven Individuals to the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico". August 31, 2016.
- ↑ Reviewed at:
• Barton Swaim (2014, Nov. 22) "How Christianity Explains Beauty and Suffering," Wall Street Journal.
• Robert T. Miller (2015, February). "Experience Explained," First Things.
• Todd Zywicki (2015, February 2), "Review of David Skeel, True Paradox: How Christianity Makes Sense of Our Complex World," Washington Post. - ↑ Reviewed at:
• Louis Massard (2012), "A Review of The New Financial Deal by David Skeel", 16 N.C. Banking Inst. 16(1), pp. 435-63. - ↑ Reviewed at:
• Janis Sara (2003), "Book Review: Debt's Dominion: A History of Bankruptcy Law in America, by David A. Skeel Jr," Osgoode Hall Law Journal, 41(4), pp. 734-740.