This Wednesday —May 14, 2014— the Federal Bar Association’s Puerto Rico chapter will host a groundbreaking bankruptcy CLE seminar entitled Puerto Rico in Crisis: Current Topics in Public and Private Sector Restructurings and Bankruptcies.
- Download the Seminar Handout (*.PDF)
One of the panels presented at the seminar will be entitled 2013 in Review: Key Mainland Decisions for Insolvency Professionals. The distinguished roster of panelists will be headlined by the Honorable Chief Bankruptcy Judge Enrique S. Lamoutte, who will serve as moderator, and by panelists Hermann D. Bauer-Álvarez (O’Neill & Borges LLC), Carmen D. Conde (Carmen Conde & Associates), Jerry Hall (Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP) and Nelson Robles Díaz (Nelson Robles Díaz Law Offices P.S.C.).
The panel will discuss several important insolvency and bankruptcy related issues, such as the automatic stay. The discussion of recent federal court decisions from outside of Puerto Rico will serve as the backdrop for an extremely interesting debate. The panel will examine decisions in which the courts have presented opposite views on a similar question: if a creditor of the estate has standing to seek damages for a violation of the automatic stay. The reasoning that the automatic stay’s protection provides grounds for creditors to seek redress for injuries caused by a stay violation is a topic that deserves close scrutiny and legal analysis. The panelists will analyze some of the most recent decisions that will bring the topic to life and provide the audience with a legal and practical perspective on future cases that may stem from the same subject.
The legal analysis may spark debate as to what remedy, if any, a corporation should have if allowed to seek damages for a stay violation. To date, section 362 (k) has been held to apply only to individuals. This novel legal variation of the stay violation will provide for a rich discussion of alternatives available to creditors.