Maine

Educational Session of Committees: The Bankruptcy Code provides enhanced and often unique opportunities to resolve tax issues faced by distressed businesses and individuals. Our program will provide a primer on how to address tax issues before and after filing for bankruptcy relief, followed by a discussion on significant tax problems faced by business and consumer debtors.

Asset Sales/Secured Credit Committees: This panel will debate the controversial proposal being considered by the ABI Commission to Study the Reform of Chapter 11 to assess a charge or hold-back on secured lenders for a § 363 asset sale, including the pros and cons, mechanics, application in various circumstances, consequences and policy issues.

Labor & Employment/Financial Advisors & Investment Banking/Legislation Committees: This panel will address public pension law, including their financial magnitude, and will focus on a number of timely current issues ranging from constitutional matters to state authorization, § 903 and 904 concerns, and relevant legislation. The panelists will draw upon their recent experiences, particularly from municipal bankruptcy cases, to highlight key themes and provide relevant insights.

This panel will explore the ethical boundaries of secrecy and confidentiality issues in a bankruptcy case. May and should a creditor/attorney for the debtor serve on a creditors’ committee, and to what extent may relevant information be divulged? To what extent may an attorney reveal information received by him/her during a retention interview if he/she is not hired but is later retained by another party? What problems arise if information to be divulged by one client could have an adverse impact on another?

ABI has embarked on a significant review of the Bankruptcy Code of 1978. It has been more than 30 years since the Code was enacted, and a consensus has emerged that the current law needs an overhaul. The world has changed, including the financial environment and the operation of the markets, and the Code even as amended was not designed to deal with many of these changes.