Introduction
On March 10, 2009, the Honorable Christopher S. Sontchi of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware issued a decision addressing the standard for preliminary injunctive relief in bankruptcy. This post will look at the substantive and procedural issues considered by the Court in Broadstripe LLC v. National Cable Television Cooperative (In re Broadstripe). Specifically, when is injunctive relief appropriate in a bankruptcy proceeding and how does a party go about seeking injunctive relief under the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure?
Background
Broadstripe filed for bankruptcy in Delaware on January 2, 2009. In July of 2000, eight years prior to filing for bankruptcy, Broadstripe joined the National Cable Television Cooperative ("NCTC") whereby NCTC agreed to negotiate master programming agreements for Broadstripe. Under the programming agreements, Broadstripe paid NCTC the licensing fees for programming services and NCTC distributed the funds paid by Broadstripe to various programmers (such as Fox, Disney, etc.). In the months leading up to bankruptcy, Broadstripe failed to pay NCTC over $3.4 million in licensing fees. However, after filing for bankruptcy Broadstripe paid NCTC all licensing fees incurred from the petition date forward.