In October 2014, GT Advanced Technologies (GT), a Delaware corporation with a principal place of business in New Hampshire, filed a petition for relief under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code (Code) in the District of New Hampshire. The locus of the filing was somewhat of a surprise to many, given the steady migration of large Chapter 11 cases to the so-called "magnet" bankruptcy venues of Delaware and the Southern District of New York. Although GT's motivation for filing in New Hampshire is unclear, some of the advantages awaiting debtors that file in the First Circuit are apparent, particularly in the realm of intellectual property (IP) licensing. In-licensed IP rights — the right of a debtor as licensee to use IP owned by a third party — are often among the most valuable assets in a business bankruptcy case, but a debtor's ability to maximize that value may vary greatly depending on the venue where the bankruptcy petition is filed.
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Co-authored by Justin Kesselman, law clerk to the Honorable Robert J. Cordy of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
Originally published in the MBA's Complex Commercial Litigation Section Newsletter, Spring 2015
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