Tuesday, November 30, 2021
The following amendments to the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure are effective December 1, 2021:
- Rule 2005 is amended to update an outdated statutory reference and adds that a court should consider only “relevant provisions and policies of 18 U.S.C. § 3142" in setting conditions to assure a debtor’s appearance at certain proceedings.
- Rule 3007(a)(2)(A)(ii) is amended to clarify that the special service method required by Rule 7004(h) must be used for service of objections to claims only on insured depository institutions as defined in section 3 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act.
- Rule 7007.1 is amended to extend the corporate disclosure requirement to nongovernmental corporations that seek to intervene.
- Rule 9036 is amended to separate the methods of electronic noticing and service available to the courts from those available to an entity. The amended rule also impacts high-volume paper bankruptcy notice recipients:
- Effective December 1, 2021, the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts has designated any entity that receives 100 or more paper bankruptcy notices in a single calendar month as a high-volume paper notice recipient pursuant to Fed. R. Bank. P. 9036(b)(2)(B) (as amended effective December 1, 2021) (the "Rule"). Once the threshold paper notice amount is reached, the Bankruptcy Noticing Center ("BNC") will notify the notice recipient that it must register for Electronic Bankruptcy Noticing ("EBN") or that, if the recipient does not register within 45 days of the date of the notification, the BNC will establish an electronic address where the Director designates the recipient to receive its notices pursuant to the Rule
Additional information, including the text of the amended rules and accompanying committee notes, is available at www.uscourts.gov/rules-policies/current-rules-practice-procedure and https://www.uscourts.gov/rules-policies/pending-rules-and-forms-amendments.
Also, the instructions at the top of the Official Bankruptcy Form 122B are amended to clarify that the form is not to be used by an individual debtor filing under subchapter V of chapter 11. The amended form is available at https://www.uscourts.gov/forms/bankruptcy-forms.