Insights
Broken Bench Bytes

Welcome to Broken Bench Bytes, your source for notable and recent decisions impacting corporate bankruptcy, restructurings, and turnarounds.

You may wonder why “Broken Bench.” Trivia time: The word “bankruptcy” is derived from two Latin words – “bancus,” which means bench, and “ruptus,” which means broken. During the 1800s, if a merchant could no longer afford to stay in business, the bench he used to sell goods would be broken, symbolizing that he was no longer welcome to do business with the other merchants. The term “bankruptcy” finds its origin in this wood-shattering event!

Why read our insights? In a time of information overload, we selectively focus on cases and developments of most interest to our readers. Each post contains three focused sections. Read “The Bottom Line” for the decision’s “elevator-pitch” sound-byte. For more detail, read “What Happened,” which covers key background and the court’s reasoning – a bit more flavor for your Byte. And finally, in “Why this Case is Interesting,” we put the decision into some quick context for practical issues affecting distressed situations. Our insights are not law review articles; they are “byte”-sized nuggets of important decisions.

We hope you enjoy and if you have any questions, comments or suggestions, we welcome your input.