NACM's 127th Credit Congress

George and Justin’s panel, titled “Trade Creditors: Protecting Your Contractual Right to Payment in Bankruptcy,” will cover how the US Bankruptcy Code enables debtors to fundamentally alter the rights of contract counterparties. If a company has a contract with a business in chapter 11, it is essential to vigilantly monitor the bankruptcy case and quickly identify steps a debtor a may take to change its contract rights. George and Justin will provide best practices and strategies for credit managers to avoid traps for the unwary. Understanding the nature of your contract and its value to the debtor’s reorganization will have important ramifications for a trade creditor and may be the difference between a 0% recovery and a 100% recovery. They will discuss recent decisions on “executory contract” issues; the differences in contracts for goods versus services; hybrid contracts for software licenses with support components; and multi-party contracts. Recognizing these differences and their ramifications in bankruptcy is critical to maximizing distributions but also to ensure that a company’s key contractual protections are preserved after the bankruptcy case concludes.