Chapter 11 Under Duress

In this Article, the Business Bankruptcy Project (BBP) reports data from an empirical study of two samples of chapter 11 bankruptcies in the federal courts in Wilmington and Manhattan, two districts notably important in modern bankruptcy practice. While our study includes a number of interesting and important facts about the chapter 11 process in 2014 and 2018, this brief interim report centers around the loss of value arising from control by pre-bankruptcy lenders and the implications that arise from that fact. Building on other recent studies, it highlights the fact that a control transaction in many chapter 11 cases has taken place outside of bankruptcy, with little effective notice and no judicial scrutiny