International Bankruptcy, Restructuring, True Crime and Appeals - Court Audio Recording Podcast

Listen to the first bankruptcy court hearing in the Getty Images chapter 11 proceedings in Delaware. For more information see https://restructuring.ra.kroll.com/GettyImages/

Link to the filings on the docket of this adversary proceeding Noble Supply & Logistics, LLC v. Defense Logistics Agency

https://veritaglobal.net/noble/document/list/6636

(case number 26-50885, pending before the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware)

This podcast episode is made with Google tools based on two sources which are matters of public record, the arguments of counsel to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit presented last year and the ensuing court filings on the docket of the U.S. Supreme Court, which include the petition filed on behalf of Sam Bankman-Fried by counsel seeking appellate review as well as amicus briefs, meaning briefs filed by friends of the court, ie organizations that wish to add information or context for the court such as discussion of due process rights.

The government has not yet responded and has the opportunity to do so as part of the process. The appeal is separate from the pardon request reportedly made on behalf of SBF.

I hope the parties decide to mediate and have before offered to work with them to try to facilitate a mutually agreeable resolution.

I think a #FreeSBF could do a lot of good and would be willing to work together. Whether he should be allowed to be a licensed trader I leave to people who can better assess but I believe he has much to offer the world professionally in any event and that he is remorseful and has been since 2022 when he was reportedly duped by CZ leading to a run on FTX. No one can stop a run like that. I can understand why he hoped a chapter 11 bankruptcy would help stabilize the business and gave control to John Ray. And I can understand why he quickly regretted it and there was nothing he could do. I relate to being powerful and becoming powerless, and being powerless and becoming powerful.

And I relate to trying to make peace no matter the power dynamic and asking yourself what you really value because power comes and goes, and some like the band U2 would tell you someone else is in control - God.

I am intrigued SBF gave an interview to the Economist about effective altruism in the form of a podcast. I posted it to LinkedIn but I don't have a subscription so can't access the content. I thought it might be helpful to synthesize the arguments to the federal appellate courts in podcast form based on the arguments of counsel to the Court of Appeals and briefing to the Supreme Court. This podcast is with automation and not biased one way or the other though I disclose here in the accompanying notes that I am sympathetic to SBF as a person caught up in a legal storm and to his family and loved ones and the many affected by what happened including of course the investors. I am also sympathetic to the government, and have served as a civil servant before. And like Sam's mom I have served as a law clerk to federal judges, and I have faith in the system.

Typically mediators are not sympathetic to parties they help reach agreement, but I think some sympathy and empathy can surely help parties figure out what to do together, with the alternative being third parties like courts deciding.

I'd love to help and I wanted to shout out Drake and his song and video for his song DUST, mentioning corporate America hit survivors and Sam Bankman-Fried in that context. Drake might be a crypto investor as so many people are invested. And we have no clue who the investors are in FTX and the shadow banking around FTX because there is so much sealing of information on the FTX docket. On the other hand to get paid out on FTX claims customers need to give a lot of information by KYC as is normal in U.S. chapter 11 cases and is the sort of disclosure issue that makes some liquidity issues better handled offshore via schemes of arrangement and other popular restructuring practices.

It would not have been possible for the lead bankruptcy counsel to lead an offshore case so they were for a chapter 11 process in the US they could lead, per some speculation in papers filed in the FTX bankruptcy. That makes some sense to me, or it seems plausible. I don't know if it's true.

What duties do the lawyers owe the individuals relative to the duties they owe themselves and their families to deal with stress they were under to cooperate with the government to deal with the fall out of FTX only the lawyers and people they confided in know and I think that is probably privileged and confidential. I feel for the lawyers being one myself. But imagine the outcome if SBF hadn't been blamed by people he trusted when he was part of a bigger picture where many people were to blame. Imagine Paul Weiss hadn't conflicted off and had explained what happened and the firm's role. That's not what the appeal is about but surely the Supreme Court Justices, lawyers themselves by training, consider many factors including whether they believe harsh punishment of one person does anything good or bad for the integrity of the financial markets and what message it sends to the rest of us who are working class to see working class people punished harshly while the generationally wealthy seem at times entirely above the law.

This podcast episode focuses on the publicly available Evergrande liquidation website on the worldwide web that provides liquidator updates about the Evergrande liquidation proceedings and invites submission of information. The podcast is a second in a series about Chinese bonds that I am making with the help of Google automation. How is Google doing? Is it accurate? It is scanning large volumes of documents and can make errors but it seems to be doing a good job describing the scale of the liquidation and efforts by the liquidators to seek information and provide updates.

The first podcast episode in this series focused on Chinese sovereign bonds and COVID-19 Hong Kong bonds. Evergrande's financing, including past issuances of bonds, is part of its complex financial situation.

Please Donate via PayPal if you can to support my work podcasting.

This is my first attempt at a podcast built with Google tools. It's based on the argument before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit held a few days ago that the court posted to its website. I suggested some areas of focus including providing a legal analysis and historical overview and the rest is the magic of Google. How did Google do generating this podcast, is it accurate?

I think gravamen is pronounced grav-ah-men not grav-amen but I have heard Englishmen pronounce the American word clerk as clark so I don't know if the pronunciation reflects a different dialect than the American English to which I am accustomed.

Here is the Google summary of the argument to the Court of Appeals:

In Noble Capital v. PRC, the appellate court reviews a legal dispute concerning whether Noble Capital LLC can seek billions in monetary damages from the People's Republic of China for historical bond defaults. Noble Capital argues that the PRC breached a precedence covenant by selling newer bonds in the United States that superseded century-old predecessor bonds issued in the UK and US. Conversely, counsel for the PRC contends that the underlying lawsuit is fundamentally a time-barred non-payment claim that is entirely barred by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and the applicable statute of limitations. The court examines whether the core injury stems from the historical non-payment or the recent U.S. bond sales, as well as whether equitable remedies like injunctions might apply to a uniquely recalcitrant debtor. Ultimately, the arguments center on jurisdiction, sovereign immunity, and how to properly categorize the breach of contract theories regarding sovereign debt.

—

This is a surprising case that was argued to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on October 13, 2026. Surprises include the allegation that JP Morgan Chase bank issued the bonds that gave rise to the underlying dispute with the People's Republic of China (PRC) and that the dispute was brought in the United States.

There are also references in the argument to Chinese COVID-19 bonds/Hong Kong bonds and to historical bearer bonds, sometimes referred to during the hearing as antique bonds.

Please Donate via PayPal to support my work podcasting hearings held by American courts to make the hearings more accessible.

This is the official audio recording of the oral argument held earlier today October 14, 2026, by the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. The argument concerns the authority of the President to deploy the National Guard to secure Washington, D.C. from crime.

Please Donate via PayPal to support my work podcasting hearings held by American courts to make the hearings more accessible.

Listen to the argument before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held January 26, 2026.

The Court of Appeals took the matter under advisement. A few months later the three judge panel of judges assigned to the appeal ruled in favor of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (the FDIC), as receiver for Silicon Valley Bank and Silicon Valley Bridge Bank, N.A.. The ruling is reflected in the written opinion handed down September 9, 2026: https://ww3.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/OPN/25-567_opn.pdf

The Court of Appeals held that the FDIC was not required to file a proof of claim in the SVB bankruptcy proceedings in the Southern District of New York, to preserve the FDIC's defensive setoff rights in a lawsuit in California.

This is an audio recording of the hearing held October 6, 2023 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, a public record posted to the website of the court as an MP3 file for public download. The recording is made more accessible to the public thanks to technological innovations of podcasting such as providing no cost closed captioning text accompanying the audio recordings, for people who are hearing impaired. Also podcasting makes audio recordings of court hearings accessible to many other people including people who can better focus on what they are listening to when they are reading along and people who are visually impaired.

The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments on October 7, 2026 in the further appeal in this case, which concerns permitting of munition explosions in Guam under NEPA.

After the September 16 hearing in the Noble Supply & Logistics bankruptcy proceedings, counsel for the bankrupt companies (Noble) and the government circulated to the bankruptcy court competing proposed orders for the court to enter. The parties were endeavoring to track the bankruptcy court's ruling on the record of September 16 but could not agree on terms. This hearing of September 18 followed to work out terms for a bankruptcy court order reflecting the court's earlier ruling. Thereafter the bankruptcy court entered an order clarifying and implementing the court's earlier ruling.

https://veritaglobal.net/noble/document/2611369260918000000000009

The court also declined, on the record and in the order the court entered, the government's request for a stay pending appeal, letting counsel for the government know during the hearing that counsel could seek a stay "across the street" - in other words, from an appellate court, if the government appeals.

For more information about the bankruptcy cases see https://cases.stretto.com/SVM/

(Bankruptcy Case Numbers and Bankruptcy Debtor Names):

26-10966

Searles Valley Minerals Inc.

26-10967

Trona Railway Company LLC

26-10968

Searles Domestic Water Company LLC

Per BioXcel's press release:

BioXcel Therapeutics Enters Into Asset Sale Agreement with Teva Pharmaceuticals

Aug 28, 2026

PDF Version

BioXcel Therapeutics intends to complete a court-supervised sale transaction, in an effort to maximize value for all stakeholders

Teva Pharmaceuticals to serve as “stalking horse” bidder in a court-supervised 363 auction process

BioXcel Therapeutics has secured a commitment for debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing to support ongoing operations

NEW HAVEN, Conn., Aug. 28, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BioXcel Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: BTAI) (“BioXcel Therapeutics” or the “Company”), a biopharmaceutical company built on artificial intelligence (“AI”) to develop transformative medicines in neuroscience, today announced that it has entered into an asset sale agreement with Teva Pharmaceuticals International GmbH (“Teva”), a subsidiary of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., for substantially all of the Company’s assets. This includes IGALMI® (dexmedetomidine) sublingual film and the related pending supplemental New Drug Application of BXCL501 for potential at-home (outpatient) use for the acute treatment of agitation associated with schizophrenia or bipolar I or II disorder in adults. Concurrent with the execution of the asset sale agreement, BioXcel Therapeutics and its subsidiaries, OnkosXcel Therapeutics, LLC and OnkosXcel Employee Holdings, LLC, have commenced voluntary Chapter 11 proceedings in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (the “Court”) to facilitate a court-supervised sale process, which is expected to include the auction of substantially all of the Company’s assets.

To anchor the sale process, Teva will serve as the sole “stalking horse bidder” for the sale of the assets contemplated by the asset sale agreement. A stalking horse asset sale agreement establishes a strong baseline offer and is intended to help maximize value for all stakeholders through the Chapter 11 auction process.

“Following a comprehensive review of strategic alternatives, we believe this option provides a clear framework to pursue a value-maximizing transaction” said Vimal Mehta, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of BioXcel Therapeutics. “Our priority is to execute a disciplined and efficient sale process while supporting all of our stakeholders and continuing to support the sNDA with a PDUFA date of November 14, 2026. We are pleased to have a signed agreement with a leading pharmaceutical company to serve as stalking horse bidder in the process, underscoring the strategic interest in our assets and in IGALMI®....”

For the rest of the BioXcel press release see: https://ir.bioxceltherapeutics.com/news-releases/news-release-details/bioxcel-therapeutics-enters-asset-sale-agreement-teva

For more information about the BioXcel bankruptcy/sale including the bankruptcy petitions and information about company assets and liabilities see: https://cases.stretto.com/bioxcel/ Typically, in situations such as these, there is a proposed buyer referred to as a stalking horse, and there is also an opportunity for other parties to come forward and bid on the assets.

This is the audio of the U.S. bankruptcy court hearing held 8/14, which was filed on the court's docket of bankruptcy proceedings on PACER.gov.

This is the argument to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, released to the court's website June 8, 2026.

The argument opens with an interesting discussion of standing that the Supreme Court might consider on appeal.

Status as of today, August 25, 2026, is the US Supreme Court has entered a stay, allowing construction to continue for now.

https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/08/supreme-court-allows-white-house-ballroom-construction-to-continue-for-now/

According to the bankruptcy court's ruling in this podcast, which was docketed by the bankruptcy court on the record of the FTX bankruptcy case, an FTX customer/claimant brought a motion seeking reconsideration of the disallowance of his claim. His claim had been disallowed by the bankruptcy court because of complications with his submission of documents to satisfy Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements. These requirements typically require submission of documentation in order for claims to be allowed, in other words eligible for payout. Sometimes customers/claimants need to also submit signed Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax forms.

This can be burdensome for U.S. based customers/claimants, and especially burdensome for customers/claimants of foreign companies that file for bankruptcy in the United States that did not go through a KYC process or fill out tax forms when they opened accounts.

People tend to think that, if their deposits and investments fail then they will be paid out in the ordinary course based on the information on file on apps through which they manage their accounts. Unfortunately this is not usually the case now typically. I am not sure but I think we would be pretty screwed if a bank or other institution holding deposit accounts failed - and I have applied to work for the FDIC because the government anticipates bank failure the FDIC will handle and I think I can help based on my bankruptcy experience.

But perhaps in the future, in bankruptcy cases and in bank failure cases outside of bankruptcy, there will be technological and other improvements such that depositors and other claimants need not go through a process at all to prove up their claims and be paid out.

For now, in bankruptcy cases, customers/claimants often find themselves either not submitting the KYC paperwork or trying to sell their claims to parties that are better able to cope with U.S. bankruptcy claims allowance/disallowance processes, including passing KYC requirements.

From the FTX ruling it's not clear what the alleged defect was with the KYC documentation submitted by the customer/claimant, but the ruling explains that the customer/claimant was concerned to receive a request for more information than he had submitted, through the mechanism for submitting the documentation. The claimant expressed to the court that he thought the request for information was possibly part of a PHISHing attempt (a cybersecurity data breach that can result in identity theft).

I am not clear what beyond a drivers license or other form of identification is needed to satisfy KYC in the FTX cases and whether the FTX customers/claimants had been KYC'd when opening accounts or thereafter.

And I think I heard the court explain in the ruling, but I am not sure, that 47,000 - forty seven thousand - customer claims have been disallowed on the same basis as the claim at issue before the court in the ruling. In other words the claims will not be paid out.

Can this possibly be correct? And how many FTX claims in total have been disallowed?

This is not a perfect analogy but practically speaking - Imagine a scenario where, instead of plaintiffs bringing class actions for fraud perpetrated on them leading up to a bankruptcy filing such as FTX's, the defendant companies that committed the fraud against the customers, whose CEO is jailed for fraud, are protected from prosecution/litigation for fraud and are bringing class actions defensively to avoid paying out customers on claims that would not exist but for the fraud and collapse of FTX.

For some context on claims allowance/disallowance processes in other bankruptcy cases, before FTX filed for bankruptcy relief in 2022... Twenty years ago or so, it became a practice in large bankruptcy cases that were not cases that followed frauds/fiascos like FTX, for the bankrupt companies' lawyers, to bring so called omnibus claims objections. The omnibus claims objection procedure is part of the claims allowance process, for large bankruptcy cases and enables bankrupt companies to more efficiently challenge claims on a common basis when there is a legitimate basis for a challenge affecting many claims.

Generally speaking, even outside of bankruptcies following frauds, the claims allowance process reverses the bankruptcy rules that creditor claims (including customer claims) are presumptively valid and allowable. So the process is backwards substantively.

And bankrupt companies can challenge claims on the basis of vague objections such as books and records objections, in other words challenging that the claim as filed by the customer/creditor is valid, on the basis the claim doesn't match the bankrupt companies' records. This can also be done with investor claims, which are a type of customer/creditor claim asserted in U.S. bankruptcy cases.

Typically, If the creditor does nothing in response to an omnibus claims objection concerning the creditor claim (and that of many other customers) then the claim will be disallowed, by default. The bankruptcy court will treat the objection to the claim as unopposed and enter an order disallowing/expunging/excluding the claims from payment in the bankruptcy. The claims may be listed on a schedule with many other claims in the same situation - claims that will not be paid out.

This is the default scenario, where a creditor who has timely notice of a claims objection, might reasonably assume creditors with larger claims will come forward. But the creditor doesn't consider those larger claimants may be dealing with the bankrupt company via arriving at one off deals reflected in stipulations and orders presented to the court, concerning the extent to which claims will be allowed and paid out.

If the creditor does not default - and timely or untimely responds to the omnibus claims objection - which will typically necessitate hiring counsel, then the hearings on the customer claim are likely to be adjourned because the bankrupt company controls the agenda for hearings presented to the court. In other words, the claimant is not going to win and have a claim eligible for payout, even if the claimant responds to the claim objection.

If the bankrupt company doesn't want to confront an issue that can be raised by other customers, which is a recurring scenario in bankruptcy cases, then the bankrupt company can adjourn hearings on a claim for months.

In the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy case in the United States, filed in 2018, I represented foreign nationals who entrusted Lehman Brothers investment vehicles with funds before Lehman Brothers collapsed, then these individuals had to deal with the claims allowance process for customers/creditors/investors trying to collect on Lehman Brothers guarantees in the U.S.

Few if any people would have invested in the Lehman Brothers feeder funds soliciting money overseas, without the Lehman Brothers guarantee probably, but when it came time to pay out on the Lehman Brothers guarantees - Lehman Brothers did not pay out in its chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, filed in New York. Lehman Brothers brought waves of omnibus claims objections challenging claims, hundreds of them.

The bankruptcy judge presiding over the Lehman Brothers case at the time, who was the judge who had dealt with the nightmare of the case since the case filing in 2008, ruled that objections of one claimant would apply to all claimants, in effect giving us class action type status, recognizing the common issues (being defrauded into investing into a Lehman Brothers feeder fund with specious documentation causing it to be unclear what level of priority the claims should receive in an unthinkable bankruptcy scenario where Lehman Brothers, which had guaranteed payout to investors itself bankrupted then challenged the payout obligations).

After the bankruptcy judge presiding over the Lehman Brothers case helped the parties procedurally and substantively with instructions for how the trial/hearing on the claims would proceed, the lawyers for the bankrupt company caused an adjournment of the hearing on our claims "sine die" - which means an adjournment of the trial on the claims without date/indefinitely.

The bankrupt companies kept the claims off the bankruptcy court's agenda while the judge who wanted a trial on the merits was the bankruptcy judge presiding over the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy.

After the judge retired from the bench and another judge took over the case, Lehman Brothers found a way to avoid trial on the claims again and make sure they wouldn't be paid. I remember the substitute judge, who has since retired, telling the Lehman Brothers' lawyers, who she saw in court repeatedly over the course of the year, how great it was to work with them and she wished happy holidays as it was year end. I have the transcript somewhere and look at it every few years, missing appearing before the judge who initially presided over the Lehman Brothers case then retired into private practice where he does great dispute resolution work including mediation.

The omnibus claims objection process for disallowing claims was extraordinary in the Lehman Brothers case which was in New York, but the case was abnormally large with a lot of foreign investment and resulting bankruptcy claims.

Over time, the disallowance process via omnibus claims objections has become normal in some cases in Delaware like FTX and, in that context, perpetuates bankrupt companies' representations their bankruptcy plans are paying creditors decently high percentages on their claims, when really the percentages would be low if the claims in the claims pool were allowed and paid out.

I do not know the circumstances of the claimant in FTX whose rights were impacted by the FTX ruling in this episode of the podcast, or how much crypto or money he lost, or how much he stands to gain if his claim is allowed, or whether he transferred his claim or continues to hold. I commend him on coming forward to a court of justice to defend his rights. He can proceed further and appeal if he thinks it worthwhile or do what the other claimants do and deal with the loss, unfair as it seems to be following the fraudulent collapse of FTX and good faith customer attempts to comply with the claims process including KYC requirements.

An interesting question is can the many other FTX claimants whose claims have been disallowed due to alleged failure to satisfy KYC requirements appeal join in an appeal or will they too hear that their objections are untimely and will not be paid out?

Thoughts on how FTX claimants can be helped are welcome on the YouTube channel accompanying this audio stream, when I post the FTX hearing there later today.

www.youtube.com/@the-comi