Robert E. Gerber is a former United States Bankruptcy Court judge from the Southern District of New York, who presided over the General Motors bankruptcy of June 2009. Gerber previously presided over the bankruptcy of Adelphia Communications Corporation and Ames Department Stores. [1] Gerber served in that office from 2000 to 2016.
Judge Gerber earned a B.S. degree from Rutgers University in 1967 and a J.D. degree from Columbia Law School in 1970. [2]
Prior to his appointment in 2000, he was a partner in the New York City law firm of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, where he specialized in securities and commercial litigation and, thereafter, bankruptcy litigation and counseling.
In 2012, a trust representing unsecured creditors of "old" GM filed a lawsuit (which came under Gerber's purview) against GM over payments made to hedge funds in 2009 in exchange for waiving of claims against GM's Canadian subsidiary. The challenge threatened (unsuccessfully) to reopen the 2009 case. [3]
Gerber presided over the bankruptcy of LyondellBasell. [4] Though the company emerged from bankruptcy in 2010, claims of fraudulent conveyance by the litigation trust representing unsecured creditors against individual former shareholders, [5] employees, and management of LyondellBasell are still pending as of early 2013. [6] [4] [7] [8]
After leaving the court, Gerber joined the New York law firm of Joseph Hage Aaronson, and taught as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Columbia. [9]
Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, whether organized as a corporation, partnership or sole proprietorship, and to individuals, although it is most prominently used by corporate entities. In contrast, Chapter 7 governs the process of a liquidation bankruptcy, though liquidation may also occur under Chapter 11; while Chapter 13 provides a reorganization process for the majority of private individuals.
A creditor or lender is a party that has a claim on the services of a second party. It is a person or institution to whom money is owed. The first party, in general, has provided some property or service to the second party under the assumption that the second party will return an equivalent property and service. The second party is frequently called a debtor or borrower. The first party is called the creditor, which is the lender of property, service, or money.
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).
Distressed securities are securities over companies or government entities that are experiencing financial or operational distress, default, or are under bankruptcy. As far as debt securities, this is called distressed debt. Purchasing or holding such distressed-debt creates significant risk due to the possibility that bankruptcy may render such securities worthless.
LyondellBasell Industries N.V. is an American multinational chemical company incorporated in the Netherlands with U.S. operations headquartered in Houston, Texas, and offices in London, UK. LBI produces ethylene, propylene, polyolefins, and oxyfuels.
A fraudulent conveyance or fraudulent transfer is the transfer of property to another party to prevent, hinder, or delay the collection of a debt owed by or incumbent on the party making the transfer, sometimes by rendering the transferring party insolvent. It is generally treated as a civil cause of action that arises in debtor/creditor relations, typically brought by creditors or by bankruptcy trustees against insolvent debtors, but in some jurisdictions there is potential for criminal prosecution.
Sir Leonard Valentinovich Blavatnik is a Ukrainian-born British-American businessman and philanthropist. As of January 2024, Forbes estimated his net worth at $31.3 billion. In 2017, Blavatnik received a knighthood for services to philanthropy.
A debt buyer is a company, sometimes a collection agency, a private debt collection law firm, or a private investor, that purchases delinquent or charged-off debts from a creditor or lender for a percentage of the face value of the debt based on the potential collectibility of the accounts. The debt buyer can then collect on its own, utilize the services of a third-party collection agency, repackage and resell portions of the purchased portfolio, or use any combination of these options.
Motley Rice LLC is an American plaintiffs' litigation firm headquartered in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.
Subordination in banking and finance refers to the order of priorities in claims for ownership or interest in various assets.
Access Industries, Inc. is a British-American privately held multinational industrial group. It was founded in 1986 by businessman Leonard "Len" Blavatnik, who is also its chairman. Access Industries' focus is in four areas: natural resources and chemicals, media and telecommunications, venture capital and real estate. The group invests in the United States, Europe, Israel, and Latin America. It is headquartered in New York and London with additional offices in Moscow.
Travelers Casualty & Surety Co. of America v. Pacific Gas & Elec. Co., 549 U.S. 443 (2007), was a United States Supreme Court case about attorney's fees in bankruptcy cases. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the opinion for a unanimous court.
Marc Stuart Dreier is an American former lawyer who was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison in 2009 for committing investment fraud using a Ponzi scheme. He is scheduled to be released from FCI Sandstone on June 30, 2025. On May 11, 2009, he pleaded guilty in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York to eight charges of fraud, which included one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud, one count of money laundering, one count of securities fraud, and five counts of wire fraud in a scheme to sell more than $950 million in fictitious promissory notes. Civil charges, filed in December 2008 by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, are pending. The 2011 documentary Unraveled states that "Drier stole over $740 million from 4 clients, 4 individuals, and 13 hedge funds".
The 2009 General Motors Chapter 11 sale of the assets of automobile manufacturer General Motors and some of its subsidiaries was implemented through Chapter 11, Title 11, United States Code in the United States bankruptcy court for the Southern District of New York. The United States government-endorsed sale enabled the NGMCO Inc. to purchase the continuing operational assets of the old GM. Normal operations, including employee compensation, warranties, and other customer services were uninterrupted during the bankruptcy proceedings. Operations outside of the United States were not included in the court filing.
Indiana State Police Pension Trust v. Chrysler LLC was a lawsuit brought in United States federal court June 2009 by several pension funds against Chrysler LLC and the United States Department of the Treasury, to block the planned sale of Chrysler LLC assets to a "New Chrysler" entity in the Chrysler bankruptcy.
Motors Liquidation Company (MLC), formerly General Motors Corporation, was the company left to settle past liability claims from Chapter 11 reorganization of American car manufacturer General Motors. It exited bankruptcy on March 31, 2011, only to be carved into four trusts; the first to settle the claims of unsecured creditors, the second to handle environmental response for MLC's remaining assets, a third to handle present and future asbestos-related claims, and a fourth for litigation claims.
Pre-packaged insolvency is a kind of bankruptcy procedure, where a restructuring plan is agreed upon in advance of a company declaring its insolvency. In the United States pre-packs are often used in a Chapter 11 filing. In the United Kingdom, pre-packs have become popular since the Enterprise Act 2002, which has made administration the dominant insolvency procedure. Such arrangements are also available in Canada under the Companies' Creditors Arrangements Act.
Stern v. Marshall, 564 U.S. 462 (2011), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a bankruptcy court, as a non-Article III court lacked constitutional authority under Article III of the United States Constitution to enter a final judgment on a state law counterclaim that is not resolved in the process of ruling on a creditor's proof of claim, even though Congress purported to grant such statutory authority under 28 U.S.C. § 157(b)2(C). The case drew an unusual amount of interest because the petitioner was the estate of former Playboy Playmate and celebrity Anna Nicole Smith. Smith died in 2007, before the Court decided the case, which her estate lost.
James L. Gallogly is a former American university administrator and retired business executive who was the 14th President of the University of Oklahoma. He has held executive positions with ConocoPhillips, ChevronPhillips and Phillips Petroleum, and is a former Chief Executive Officer of LyondellBasell. Gallogly joined the DuPont board of directors in February 2015. He became the 14th president of the University of Oklahoma, on July 1, 2018 serving for nine months and two weeks before he retired May 12, 2019.
Reid Collins & Tsai LLP is a national trial law firm with offices in New York, Austin, Dallas, Wilmington, and Washington, D.C. The firm represents plaintiffs in complex commercial litigation on a mixed-fee or contingency-fee basis.