Member Article

Join our Bankruptcy and Creditors’ Rights team and special guests Karlene Archer from Karlene Archer Law and Andrea Cobery, Vice President and Assistant General Counsel at U.S. Bank, for a discussion of bankruptcy servicing best practices in the time of the coronavirus. We will offer legal insights and practical guidance related to providing notice of forbearance plans in bankruptcy courts. Andrea and our team will address loss mitigation strategies with respect to the end of these forbearance plans. We will cover vendor management and capacity planning as we anticipate a spike in bankruptcy filings in the coming months. Andrea and our team also will give our thoughts on plan payment moratoriums and CARES Act plan modifications. Finally, we will discuss updates to customer correspondence and bankruptcy policies and procedures that may be necessary to ensure regulatory compliance going forward.

Other Speakers:

Karlene Archer, Karlene Archer Law
Andrea Cobery, Vice President and Assistant General Counsel at U.S. Bank

Webinar Recording

Key Takeaways

• Given the potential modifications to bankruptcy plan lengths, servicers should monitor bankruptcy dockets carefully and make accounting adjustments as necessary to reflect court orders.
• Servicers need to be flexible when implementing bankruptcy-specific forbearance plans to reflect local court requirements.
• Loss mitigation applications in bankruptcy will rapidly increase as the forbearance plans expire, so servicers should take steps now to ensure compliance with Regulation X and court-specific loss mitigation programs.
• Industry experts predict a spike in consumer bankruptcy filings in the coming months, so servicers should take stock of current internal bankruptcy resources immediately and should make appropriate staffing adjustments.
• Given the current strain on third-party vendors, servicers also should be looking externally to determine whether local counsel networks and other bankruptcy service providers have the capacity to handle the coming volume.