By Jonathan C. Lipson (Temple University – James E. Beasley School of Law)
The Supreme Court’s 2017 decision in Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corp. (In re Jevic) reaffirms that final distributions in chapter 11 cases must follow “absolute” priority absent the “consent” of priority creditors. The Court did not, however, define “consent” for this purpose, which is a problem, because consent can be hard to pinpoint in corporate reorganizations that involve hundreds or thousands of creditors and shareholders.
In this paper, I argue that, although the Jevic majority does not define consent, its reasoning reflects concerns about aspects of the reorganization process that may serve as proxies for it: stakeholder participation, outcome predictability, and procedural integrity.
First, I explain why “consent” is indeterminate in this context, inviting an inspection of process quality. Second, I assess Jevic’s process-value framework. Implementing Jevic’s values is not costless, so the Court’s commitment to them suggests that efficiency — the mantra of many scholars — is not the only or necessarily the most important value in reorganization. Third, I argue that these values conflict with the power that senior secured creditors have gained in recent years to control corporate reorganizations. Many worry that this power is the leading problem in corporate bankruptcy, producing needless expropriation and error. I also sketch opportunities that Jevic creates for scholars and practitioners who share these concerns.
Jevic reveals a secret: “priority” is not only about the order in which a corporate debtor pays its creditors, but also about the process by which it does so.
The full article is available here.