bankruptcy

no notes here 4/16?

see opioids CEO bonus?!

irony: polluter corps who greedy dumb overinvest in capacity like coal get ballouts/subsidy, and judge will toss their pension obligation (and even let them loot the fund supposed to be used to recover the land after), but students who wisely invest in own future cannot declare b. judges may be sons of Rove like griffin? FTI wrecked economy and cooked planet then makes $ repping the villains.

an 12 24 pro pub

...As it failed to pull out of a financial tailspin, Endo accelerated bonuses to about two dozen executives. Records show a total of $95 million was paid in less than a year.

Four days after the last bonus round of $22 million was paid to chief executive Blaise Coleman and his three top lieutenants, Endo filed its bankruptcy petition in federal court in New York. The total Endo paid its top bosses dwarfed the controversial $7 million in pre-bankruptcy bonuses granted to a handful of Purdue executives.

The bonuses immediately came under fire from a federal bankruptcy watchdog, opioid victims and many creditors. The critics told U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge James Garrity Jr. that the payouts violated a law, championed by then-Sen. Ted Kennedy, D.-Mass., nearly 20 years ago after scandals involving windfalls paid to executives of bankrupt firms, most notably Enron.

In interviews, professors who specialize in bankruptcy said that the bonuses appeared to be an end run around Kennedy’s reforms. “It looks like pre-petition theft,” said Gregory Germain, a widely published bankruptcy expert at the University of Syracuse.

Skadden lawyer Lisa Laukitis defended the bonuses in a bankruptcy hearing. “These are not windfall payments that were made to line the pockets of executives on the eve of the filing,” she said.

The bankruptcy went on for months. Hedge funds and other investors — led by GoldenTree Asset Management, a New York firm that specializes in buying distressed debt — agreed to use their secured debt to buy Endo out of bankruptcy. In negotiations to take ownership, the group sweetened the deal by increasing the payments going to individual opioid victims and other unsecured creditors. As part of the deal, the critics dropped their complaints about Project Zed and the bonuses.

...

aha/yikes scam to avoid class action:

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/katie-porter/

no lnx

Rep Porter (D-Calif.) recently blasted Johnson & Johnson for moving to split its baby powder from the rest of the company amid a highly publicized class-action lawsuit from thousands of women.

Since the group of plaintiffs, some of whom have been diagnosed withovarian cancer, are alleging that the corporation's baby powder and other talc products were contaminated with asbestos, Porter is criticizing the company's push to treat its baby powder as a separate company, Business Insider reports.

On Tuesday, October 19, the Democratic lawmaker questioned the corporation's decision and criticized its attempt to shield assets from litigation.

"Johnson & Johnson filed in court last week to split its Baby Powder from the rest of the company," the congresswoman tweeted. "Why? J&J knew asbestos laced some bottles but kept it a secret for decades. Tens of thousands of women with ovarian cancer are suing, and the company wants to shield its assets."

"J&J sold the powder for 60 years, and now that it has to pay for these women's medical bills, it wants the courts to treat 'Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder' as a separate company," the California congresswoman continued.

Linda Lipsen, who works for the American Association for Justice, also released a statement criticizing the corporation's actions, according to ABC News.

"There are countless Americans suffering from cancer, or mourning the death of a loved one, because of the toxic baby powder that Johnson & Johnson put on the market that has made it one of the most profitable pharmaceutical corporations in the world," Lipsen said in the statement. "Their conduct and now bankruptcy gimmick is as despicable as it is brazen."

they failed at failure!

NRA BANKRUPT 86'D $270k SILK ITAL SUITS BEVERLY HILLS

https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/ted-cruz-walks-out-of-gun-violence-hearing-when-democratic-senator-refuses-to-let-him-change-the-subject/

https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/capitol-rioters/

[china is asshole" sign pix]

More than 200 people are facing federal criminal charges for their alleged roles in the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol Building. And according to Washington Post reporter Todd C. Frankel, many of them have something in common: a history of financial problems.

"Nearly 60% of the people facing charges related to the Capitol riot showed signs of prior money troubles, including bankruptcies, notices of eviction or foreclosure, bad debts, or unpaid taxes over the past two decades, according to a Washington Post analysis of public records for 125 defendantswith sufficient information to detail their financial histories," Frankel reports. "The group's bankruptcy rate, 18%, was nearly twice as high as that of the American public, the Post found. A quarter of them had been sued for money owed to a creditor. And one in five of them faced losing their home at one point, according to court filings."

On January 6, a violent mob of far-right extremists stormed the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. in the hope of preventing Congress from certifying the Joe Biden's Electoral College victory over then-President Donald Trump in the 2020 election. But the certification was only delayed, not prevented. And two weeks later, on January 20, Biden was sworn in as president of the United States — and former Sen. Kamala Harris was sworn in as vice president.

A majority of those charged in the Capitol riot had serious financial issues in their backgrounds, including a bank… https://t.co/AP6h6WLrng

— Ziva Branstetter (@Ziva Branstetter)1612958705.0

Although President Biden and Vice President Harris are centrist Democrats, they are more liberal on economic issues than Trump — who fought aggressively to abolish the Affordable Care Act of 2010, a.k.a. Obamacare, and favored corporate tax cuts that benefited the wealthiest Americans but did precious little for the United States' working class. And yet, the January 6 insurrectionists were willing to resort to violence in the hope of keeping them out of the White House. Trump ran on a pseudo-populist platform, insisting that he was the working class' greatest friend and ally — and his MAGA base bought into it.

According to Frankel, the "financial problems" of so many January 6 rioters "are revealing because they offer potential clues for understanding why so many Trump supporters — many with professional careers and few with violent criminal histories — were willing to participate in an attack egged on by the president's rhetoric painting him and his supporters as undeserving victims."

Frankel explains, "While no single factor explains why someone decided to join in, experts say, Donald Trump and his brand of grievance politics tapped into something that resonated with the hundreds of people who descended on the Capitol in a historic burst of violence."

The Post discussed its findings with Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a political science professor at American University in Washington, D.C.

"I think what you're finding is more than just economic insecurity, but a deep-seated feeling of precarity about their personal situation," Miller-Idriss told the Post. "And that precarity — combined with a sense of betrayal or anger that someone is taking something away — mobilized a lot of people that day."

Frankel notes that the January 6 rioters include not only people who presently have financial problems, but also, those who did in the past.

"The financial missteps by defendants in the attempted insurrection ranged from small debts of a few thousand dollars more than a decade ago to unpaid tax bills of $400,000 and homes facing foreclosure in recent years," Frankel notes. "Some of these people seemed to have regained their financial footing, but many of them once stood close to the edge."

One such person, according to Frankel, is 50-year-old Jenna Ryan, a Texas-based real estate agent who filed for bankruptcy in 2012 and was still paying off a $37,000 lien for unpaid federal taxes when she was arrested in connection with the January 6 riot. Ryan, who is now facing federal charges, told the Post, "I bought into a lie, and the lie is the lie — and it's embarrassing. I regret everything."

Ryan, Frankel notes, "had nearly lost everything, and the stakes seemed similarly high to her when she came to Washington in early January. She fully believed Trump's false claims that the election was stolen and that he was going to save the country."

The Post also interviewed Don Haider-Markel, a political science professor at the University of Kansas. Haider-Markel told the Post, "It's hard to ignore, with a Trump presidency, that message that 'the America you knew and loved is going away, and I'm going to protect it.' They feel, at a minimum, that they're under threat."

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

Fracking Giant Chesapeake Energy Files for Bankruptcy

FRACKING

420 pro publ

One Thing the Pandemic Hasn’t Stopped: Aggressive Medical-Debt Collection

U.S. hospitals are in the spotlight for being on the frontline of fighting the pandemic. But in the shadows, debt collection operations continue, often by the same institutions treating coronavirus patients, all while unemployment and uncertainty soar.

by Alec MacGillis

VIEW STORY

420 mma

aha: prosperity/GNP = life; bankruptcy is social darwin fail with invis hand culling out the unfit (like wolves of caribou?]

the strict fr allows co's to go out of biz vs coddle profligate or even sinful:

right-wing media cheer for states to file “bankruptcy” from coronavirus as a chance to cut public pensions

As job losses and economic lockdowns have dried up state revenue streams during the coronavirus pandemic, right-wing media are trying to force state governments into insolvency and bankruptcy — just when people are most in need of government programs for help.

Gutting worker pensions has long been a right-wing priority, complete with dire warnings of insolvency and disaster. But the reality is that most state plans are well-funded, and there is no systemic shortfall — the alleged problem really comes from accounting that measures only the current value of saved assets against all future liabilities. But with the immediate halt of so much revenue due to shutdowns to stop the spread of coronavirus, states are facing a crisis never before seen.

Talking with NBC News contributor Hugh Hewitt, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) suggested creating a law for states to declare bankruptcy. Fox hosts and right-wing media jumped on board immediately.

During his coronavirus update press conference Thursday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) tore into McConnell’s pronouncements, pointing out that Kentucky relies on federal funding and that McConnell's plan would defund police, firefighters, and schools.

The fact is that this crisis is so severe that no state could possibly have enough money in "rainy day" funds. Either the federal government helps the states, or the crisis will metastize into something far worse. And that's true no matter what right-wing media say.

aha/doh!: circuit breaker in stock mkt; this is a do-over to encourage reasonable risk/investment [// LLC?]; but trump just used as scam/grift? but what about "moral hazard?"?

aha: pattern: privative profit socialize loss, corp welfare/socialism

coal (extraction, pollute commons for free/subsidized, kill workers but then use as prop/ cheerleader in war on coal;

opioid also a kind of grift/extraction, on the backs of rural working ppl who get hurt/worn out on job like coalminers (tho trad had union protection and law eg black lung b/c of historic injustice, but ~ by McConn/chao champions of coal)

not-for-profit college also extractive grift that blood funnel of vampire squid into fed vet ed money.

nuke power

permian only possible place to make $ frack vs bakken

chevron got outbid by occid, walked away w/ 1 billion free? : chev api, exxon want no bailout covid for small co's so they can buy cheap

3/20 kinda back on radar biden primary

NB DESMOG TRACKING IMPENDING BANKRUPTCY? KEPT AFLOAT BY BANKS?

aha ish // disaster cap'l, never waste a crisis to dustoff wishlist

Will an oil tycoon who donated $500,000 to support Trump’s re-election get bailed out by his administration?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/will-an-oil-tycoon-who-donated-500000-to-support-trumps-re-election-get-bailed-out-by-his-administration

no lnx

Will an oil tycoon who donated $500,000 to support Trump’s re-election get bailed out by his administration?

Written by Igor Derysh / Salon March 12, 2020

With oil prices plunging during the coronavirus outbreak, the Trump administration is weighing a federal bailout for oil and natural gas companies, according to a new report.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly touted a fracking boom under his administration, but oil and gas companies have seen profits drop amid an oil price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia.

“Alarmed” by the prospect that some of these companies, many of which are already in debt, [see desmog]could go out of business, White House officials have pushed for a federal bailout in the form of low-interest government loans, The Washington Post reported.

Among those pushing for the bailout is Harold Hamm, a billionaire Trump adviser who owns Continental Resources, an energy company which lost half of its market value Monday.

Hamm told The Post that although he had not made “direct” contact with the president, he advised the administration to consider “any action that the administration might take to protect and preserve American interests at this time from being unfairly disadvantaged.”

Hamm has given more than $500,000 to support Trump’s re-election effort since 2017, the government watchdog group Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington noted.

Some Trump advisers told The Post that the administration was eyeing “targeted assistance” for the companies. Though under consideration, another official warned that “political blowback over the idea may eventually lead campaign advisers and others in [the] administration to talk Trump out of it.”

Chris Rupkey, the chief economist at MUFG Union Bank, told the outlet that he expects significant political backlash.

“It’s difficult when governments selectively target individual industries,” he said. “And there’s going to be pushback on it, because it’s political and may be tied to the administration’s contacts and the people it knows.”

Cornell University professor Robert Hockett, who has advised Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., on economic policy, added that it was ridiculous to look out for big fracking companies while millions need relief.

“We are in the midst of a crisis where people are literally having to skip work and may miss paychecks or face medical debt,” he said. “The idea you would look to help out shale companies now is like something out of a satire or a bad movie. It’s absurd.”

Trump also said that he was looking at bailing out airlines, cruise lines and the hospitality industryTuesday, as they reel from the impact of COVID-19, the disease spread by the novel coronavirus. But the bailout proposals have received public pushback from Republicans.

“They can take care of themselves,” Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., told The Washington Examiner. “Why do you overreact just when there’s a little pain? That doesn’t make sense.”

Nick Loris, an economist at the right-wing Heritage Foundation, said such a bailout “would not sit well” with fiscal conservatives.

“Not only would it potentially put taxpayers on the hook for future potential losses and bankruptcies, it would distort the risk-taking process that is so critical in making these investments,” he told the outlet. “We’ve seen the resiliency in the industry before, and I believe we’ll see it again.”

However, Alex Doukas, the lead analyst for advocacy group Oil Change International, predicted that Trump’s big-money donors would heavily pressure the administration to ignore the criticism.

“With oil prices in free fall, expect oil companies to turn to their age-old tactic of bullying governments for even more subsidies on top of the hundreds of billions they benefit from annually,” Doukas said. “Instead of more handouts to polluters, governments should make big investments in high-quality green jobs that will put people to work and ultimately end our dependence on the volatile fossil fuels that create climate chaos.”

Journalist David Cay Johnson described the lobbying effort as “corporate socialists” seeking “welfare from the Trump administration.”

“Bailing out the oil industry won’t help the workers who have to choose between their health and their paychecks. It won’t help the people who could go into medical debt from COVID-19,” Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., tweeted. “We need paid family leave and Medicare expanded to every American.”

“The American people are worried about missing paychecks, affording coronavirus tests, & being able to afford healthcare period. But [Trump] wants to bail out the oil industry?” Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., added. “Leave it to Trump to prioritize his friends over the American people.”

Igor Derysh is a staff writer at Salon. His work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Herald and Baltimore Sun.

https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking-cleanup-costs-2641678836.html

In over their heads with debt, U.S. shale oil and gas firms are now moving from a boom in fracking to a boom in bankruptcies. This trend of failing finances has the potential for the U.S. public, both at the state and federal levels, to be left on the hook for paying to properly shut down and clean up even more drilling sites.

Expect these companies to try reducing their debt through the process of bankruptcy and, like the coal industry, attempting to get out of environmental and employee-related financial obligations.

The Bankruptcy of EP Energy

In October, EP Energy — one of the largest oil producers in the Eagle Ford Shale region in Texas — filed for bankruptcy because the firm couldn't pay back almost $5 billion in debt, making it the largest oil and gas bankruptcy since 2016.

EP Energy hasn't produced a profit since 2014 and Bloomberg reported that the company would need oil to be at "a price closer to $70 per barrel" for EP to be profitable. Oil has not come close to averaging over $70 a barrel since 2014.

Despite its financial struggles at current low oil prices, the company plans to continue operating after restructuring and eliminating up to $3 billion in debt. However, EP has not identified any funds that it would be setting aside for well cleanup, which is not unusual for an oil and gas company.

In response, as part of the bankruptcy proceedings, the U.S. Department of the Interior filed a document arguing that EP Energy is still responsible for its obligations to assure the "decommissioning, plugging, and abandonment" of any of the EP Energy wells that are located on leased federal and tribal lands.

Ideally, that would mean EP Energy sets aside funds for the proper cleanup and end-of-life processes for its oil and gas wells, which number more than 800 in the Eagle Ford region.

However, the federal government hasn't even named a number yet for how much that should be. The Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Indian Affairs "are currently still assessing the status of reclamation and plugging and abandonment obligations across the Debtors' onshore federal and Indian leases," writes the Interior Department.

...

desmog has been going on about this bubble ponzi scheme a while?

https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/11/06/debt-fracking-chesapeake-energy-stock-price-dollar

1219

Purdue Pharma Files for Bankruptcy

no lnx

Trump was elected on promises to boost the coal industry and halt the transition to electric cars. It’s not working

Written by Carl Pope / Salon August 15, 2019

For two years the cabal of fossil fools surrounding Donald Trump have leveraged an impulsive president’s loathing of his predecessor, tapped their reactionary right-wing networks, mobilized coal and oil lobbies and political donations, and thrown themselves vigorously into two missions:

Bring back the coal industry and stop the “Stalinist” threat of wind and solar power.

Freeze the transition from oil-powered cars and trucks to electricity by reversing Obama-era plans to encourage cleaner, more efficient vehicle fleets.

In the last several weeks, the futility of both these efforts to strangle the future have become clear.

The latest blow to the Trump clean energy rollback was an announcement by California and four major automakers — including Volkswagen, the world’s largest — that even if the president can persuade the courts to allow him to roll back the Obama administration’s improved regulations on pollution and efficiency standards for cars and light trucks, these companies would guarantee that their U.S. fleets meet a set of slightly modified standards devised by California for the model years 2022-25.

While Ford was the only U.S. automaker to sign, it’s still a huge step. (And Ford is hardly a bit player.) General Motors appears to be seeking more credit for its significant investment in electrification, and Fiat Chrysler, having turned itself into a niche brand that proudly produced the world’s best 20th-century cars — Jeep SUVs and Ram Trucks — simply whined. (Chrysler still doesn’t know how it will comply with the much laxer 2020-21 rules.) Toyota may be watching to see what GM does.

The agreement made clear that the Trump administration’s refusal to negotiate with California was rooted in its own stubbornness, not California’s unwillingness to make a reasonable offer. It further made clear that the auto industry feels deeply threatened both by the prospect of a US auto market split into two segments — one following strong California innovation rules, the other locked into yesterday’s auto technology. It also highlighted the degree to which clear mandates in other markets — particularly Europe and China — are maintaining the pace of progress toward clean, electric vehicles, and a recognition that U.S. automakers must keep up regardless of whether federal standards require that.

As Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., often seen as the D.C. voice of the American auto industry, pointed out, “This industry is more fragile than many realize. If the United States is to be competitive, we have to stay at the forefront of innovation and technology, which will help us transition to the next generation of more fuel-efficient vehicles.”

And what of the other flank of the Trump assault on climate progress: His promise to bring back “beautiful” coal? The last month has seen a slew of announcements making utterly clear that the coal industry is on the way out as a source of electric energy. The Energy Department has conceded that coal’s share of U.S. electricity generation will continue to plummet – from more than 50% a few years ago, to 30% in 2017 and a forecast of only 24% this year. The largest coal power plant to fall thus far — American Electric Power’s behemoth Rockport, Indiana, facility — has announced it will shut down. An all-Republican body of utility regulators in Georgia required Georgia Power not only to shut down much of its coal facilities, but also to embrace renewables, rather than natural gas, as the replacement. One analyst called this “the worst month for coal power in decades.”

Coal’s bleak future didn’t just hit utility operators. Yet another set of coal mining operators headed for bankruptcy courts, with Blackhawk Mining unable to sustain its Appalachian operations. This followed four other bankruptcies in the previous four months: Blackjewel on July 1, Cambrian Holding on June 16, Cloud Peak Energy on May 10 and Trinity Coal on March 4.

Many of the bankruptcies came because mining companies wanted to shed their commitments to provide pensions and health care for retirees, as well as to clean up the environmental disaster left behind by many of their operations. And since Republicans in Congress had allowed the tax that provides funding for health care for coal miners suffering from black lung disease to expire, just as poorly regulated working conditions have triggered a major black lung epidemic, miners were forced to mobilize to try to make their alleged pal in the Oval Office, not to mention Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, make good on at least some of their boasts about making life wonderful for coal again. When the miners arrived in Washington, McConnell gave them the brush-off in a perfunctory meeting after which they said he had treated them rudely.

None of this has stopped the coal industry’s barons from cozying up to Trump. Bob Murray, for whom a pledged bail-out was one of Trump’s undelivered promises, still came through with a major campaign fundraiser in Wheeling, West Virginia. But as the 2020 election season heats up, it appears that while coal mine owners might still love the president, his efforts to rescue coal-fired power and oil-fired transportation from history’s verdict had collapsed — making clear once again that it’s time to move beyond carbon.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/many-people-are-too-broke-for-bankruptcy-heres-what-congress-and-bankruptcy-organizations-could-do-to-help/

It’s tax season. That also means it’s bankruptcy season. Every year, bankruptcy filings peak in March and stay elevated in April, as people use their precious tax refunds to finally purchase the thing they couldn’t afford before: bankruptcy.

All sorts of bad things happen when bankruptcy is out of reach for people, as we showed in a series of stories. People turn to unscrupulous operators who file phony bankruptcy cases, as happens often in Los Angeles. Particularly in the South, they turn to a form of bankruptcy that features a payment plan and that often ends in failure, leaving debtors worse off than when they filed. (African Americans are especially prone to that problem.) And finally, many people don’t file at all — and just hope that a debt collector doesn’t seize their wages.

In a report issued Thursday, the American Bankruptcy Institute, which counts 13,000 judges, attorneys and other professionals among its members, offered a range of fixes for the bankruptcy system. Chief among them were suggestions on how Congress could change the law to make bankruptcy more accessible.

The main cost when filing bankruptcy is paying an attorney (which typically runs around $1,000), but the laws essentially require debtors to come up with the money up front. That’s particularly hard for people who are being squeezed by debt, so the report by the ABI’s Consumer Commission recommended making it possible for debtors to pay their attorneys over time after filing. This would require a change of the law, because attorney fees are usually wiped out just like any other debt when someone files for bankruptcy.

The report also acknowledged widespread racial disparities in bankruptcy filings. As we showed in a story that focused on Memphis, Tennessee, the city with the highest bankruptcy filing rate in the country, black debtors are churned through a system that rarely results in debt actually being erased. We also published an extensive data analysisthat showed it’s a national trend. The ABI report cited our work alongside other academic studies demonstrating the problem. (The report also noted ProPublica Illinois’ work on how Chicago’s punitive traffic ticket system has pushed many black debtors into bankruptcy.)

In the “Racial Justice in Bankruptcy” section of the report, the authors recommended that bankruptcy organizations offer implicit bias training as part of their legal education offerings and that the courts begin to collect information about debtors’ race and ethnicity in order to more concretely show the disparities. But as we noted in our stories, making bankruptcy more affordable would do the most to curb this problem.

There are a host of other recommendations in the report. Some of them are rather technical. Some could have a major effect on the lives of millions of Americans. In particular, the commission recommended making it possible for debtors to wipe out student loan debt after a period of years. Currently, debtors have to demonstrate remarkable financial hardship in order to get relief, a standard that judges have criticized as unreasonable.

Of course, relying on Congress to get things done is never a sure path to change. And the last time Congress passed a big bankruptcy reform bill in 2005, the results were very damaging to low-income families. But the ABI is an influential organization on this topic, and some prominent Democrats, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, among them, have already endorsed the idea of making bankruptcy more accessible.

Filed under:

Debt

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

firstenergy nuke power long list of debtor includes black diamond safari military cop gear

COAL

http://www.thedeal.com/pdf/OOCLTQ32015.pdf

creditors:

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP

Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP

Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP

Kirkland & Ellis LLP

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP

Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP

Latham & Watkins LLP

Robbins, Russell, Englert, Orseck, Untereiner & Sauber LLP

Brown Rudnick LLP

Dechert LLP

Dentons

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP

consel to debtors:

ank

Adviser

No. of Deals

Kirkland & Ellis LLP

Latham & Watkins LLP

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP

Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP

White & Case LLP

Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP

Vinson & Elkins LLP

Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP

Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP

Debevoise & Plimpton LLP

Dentons

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP

Jones Day

Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP

Norton Rose Fulbright LLP

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP

Proskauer Rose

restructuring advisor:

Rank

Adviser

No. of Deals

Alvarez & Marsal LLC

FTI Consulting Inc.

AlixPartners LLP

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP

Carl Marks Advisory Group LLC

Conway MacKenzie Inc

Zolfo Coope==

Kathy A. Surratt-States took the oath of office of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Missouri in 2003. Surratt-States is the third member of the firm of Ziercher & Hocker -- which merged with Husch & Eppenberger in 1998 -- to assume the bench.

http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2001/12/24/focus16.html

At her swearing-in, Surratt-States remarked: "This ceremony is the physical manifestation of a dream that literally began when I first studied business law in high school. While many years have passed since I made my first visit to the courtroom, my dream continues," she said. Surratt-States thanked family and friends for support in the form of food and visits. To professional associates she said, "Thanks for every tough assignment, every tip of the trade, every discussion and every `Kathy, keep your chin up' talk." Surratt-States continued, "Each interaction with family, friends and professional peers [has] occurred for a reason. Make no mistake: Nothing in life is coincidental. Your decisions to provide support and guidance weren't coincidental and neither were my decisions to pursue my dream. . . . You've all invested in me, and you will not be disappointed," she vowed.

Surratt-States is a member of the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis, the Mound City Bar Association and The Missouri Bar. She earned her law degree from Washington University School of Law in 1991 and has served as a bankruptcy panel trustee for the Eastern District of Missouri since 1997.

Surratt-States replaces Bankruptcy Judge David P. McDonald, who retired on Jan. 10, 2003. She is the first African-American to be appointed to the bankruptcy bench in the 8th Circuit.

licker co

Thebankruptcy court is part of the federal district court in each judicial district. Bankruptcy judges are appointed for fourteen year terms. The statutes applicable to federal district courts and The Federal Rules of Evidence are often used in bankruptcy courts. All cases with issues addressed in Title 11 of the United States Code are at first referred from the district court to the bankruptcy court. This does not mean that these cases have to stay in the bankruptcy court; they just have to start there if the case deals with issues under Title 11 (The Bankruptcy Code). The bankruptcy court can also hold jury trials and has the powers of a court of equity, law and admiralty. Appeals from the bankruptcy court can go to the district court of the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel Service (BAPS), if one has been established in that district. BAPS consist of three bankruptcy judges. Cases may go up to the BAPS if all of the parties agree to this and the majority of the district judges agree to refer appeals to the BAPS for that district. Although uncommon, there are cases when appeals can go straight from the bankruptcy court to the court of appeals. The procedure for appealing in bankruptcy cases is laid out in the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure, similar to the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure.

Saint Louis is located in the Eastern District of Missouri. The bankruptcy judges for the Eastern District of Missouri are Chief Judge Barry S. Schermer, Judge Kathy Surratt-States and Charles E. Rendlen, III. The Eastern District of Missouri has three divisions: the Eastern division (which includes Saint Louis and outlying areas), the Northern Division and the Southeastern Division. The bankruptcy court for the Eastern Division of the Eastern District of Missouri is located in the Thomas F. Eagleton U. S. Courthouse at 111 South 10^th Street, Saint Louis, MO 63102. The bankruptcy court for the Northern Division of the Eastern District of Missouri is located in the Hannibal Federal Building at 801 Broadway, Hannibal, MO 63401. Note, the Hannibal office is not staffed unless court is being held. The bankruptcy court for the Southeastern Division of the Eastern District of Missouri is located in the Rush Hudson Limbaugh Sr. U. S. Courthouse at 555 Independence Street, Cape Girardeau, MO 63703. Directions and contact information for each of these locations is available at www.moed.uscourts.gov.