Recent Cases Reshaping the Intersection of Bankruptcy and Environmental Law

Bankruptcy law and environmental law often are in tension with one another.  The former seeks to accelerate a debtor’s liabilities into a net present value to determine creditor distributions.  The latter encourages parties to manage environmental and decommissioning liabilities over extended periods of time (often geologic time). 

In this webinar, Bracewell’s Mark Dendinger and Jason Hutt explore how four recent bankruptcies – Venoco, Fieldwood Energy, Philadelphia Energy Solutions and La Paloma – addressed these tensions and how those cases may inform the future treatment of environmental and decommissioning liabilities in the bankruptcy context.