By Jane Rue Wittstein and Mark G. Douglas (Jones Day)
Courts disagree as to whether the amount that a bankruptcy trustee or chapter 11 debtor-in-possession can recover in fraudulent transfer avoidance litigation should be capped at the total amount of unsecured claims against the estate. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware recently weighed in on this issue in PAH Litigation Trust v. Water Street Healthcare Partners, L.P. (In re Physiotherapy Holdings, Inc.), 2017 WL 5054308 (Bankr. D. Del. Nov. 1, 2017). Noting the absence of any guidance on the question from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, the bankruptcy court ruled that, unlike most state fraudulent transfer laws, which limit a creditor’s recovery to the amount of its unpaid claim against the transferor, section 550 of the Bankruptcy Code imposes no such limitation on the estate’s recovery. The ruling reinforces the idea that federal and state fraudulent transfer avoidance laws are intended to be remedial rather than punitive. Under state law, this understandably means that an avoidance recovery is limited to the amount necessary to make an injured creditor whole. Under federal bankruptcy law, recoveries must benefit the bankruptcy estate, which includes the interests of creditors and other stakeholders.
The article is available here.