Consumer Bankruptcy

Fourth Circuit holds that attorneys’ fees and interest in pursuit of nondischargeable debts are themselves nondischargeable.

Judge Beth Buchanan decided that the ‘totality of the circumstances’ test for ‘abuse’ doesn’t permit disregarding the exemption for Social Security benefits.

A California exemption law protecting victims of spousal abuse doesn’t apply to those who aren’t married.

District court rules that proceeds from a postpetition personal injury claim are ‘additional disposable income’ that ordinarily goes to creditors in a chapter 13 plan.

Taggart doesn’t give more protection to a purchaser of debt than it does to the original creditor, Judge Scott Grossman says.

Heather Giannino and Hannah Hutman, co-chairs of ABI’s Consumer Bankruptcy Committee, thank all committee members for their participation this year.

The committee is proud to have organized and hosted another very successful Consumer Practice Extravaganza (CPEX) in partnership with ABI’s professional staff, Co-Chairs Jeffrey Fraser and Summer Shaw, and a robust planning committee. Committee leadership serving on the CPEX planning committee included Heather Giannino (Co-Chair), Jeffrey Fraser (Special Projects Leader), Karlene Archer (Education Director), Mike Miller (Communications Manager) and Kara Gendron (Membership Relations Director).

Over the past year, case law around privacy and data security has been evolving in crypto industry bankruptcies, as courts grapple with familiar issues in a new industry. Debtors, unsecured creditors’ committees and other proponents of greater privacy for creditors of crypto companies argue that greater precautions are required because crypto company creditors are more likely than creditors of other types of companies to be targeted by identity theft and scams. Crypto assets can be attractive to scammers and other bad actors due to the anonymity of cryptocurrency transactions and difficulty tracing crypto assets.