Bankruptcy Fraud Investigations

Thomas H. Curran Associates’s lawyers have deep and broad experience conducting investigations in bankruptcy proceedings, having been retained by trustees and creditors to investigate debtors’ business and financial affairs, including potential fraudulent pre-petition transactions. The Firm couples its legal expertise with its financial and operational knowledge to provide clients with unparalleled investigatory capabilities.

The commencement of a bankruptcy case initiates a process of required debtor disclosures starting with the petition, schedules and s. 341 creditors meeting. Those disclosures are rarely sufficient to provide the trustee, creditor body or other parties in interest with a fulsome and accurate depiction of the debtor’s pre-petition and ongoing business and financial affairs, on which a case under Chapter 7, 11, 13 or 12 depends. Such information is critical for parties in interest to make informed decisions about plan feasibility, discharge and dischargeability objections, claim submission, avoidance and recovery actions, disclosure statement and plan objections, plan confirmation and many other routine bankruptcy tasks. Often times, a debtor is deliberately less than forthright in his or its bankruptcy disclosures, concealing or omitting information concerning related businesses, assets, transfers, potential turnover, avoidance and recovery claims, insider transactions, or other material information.

Thomas H. Curran Associates utilizes a number of tools available to trustees and bankruptcy litigators under the Bankruptcy Code, including Rule 2004 discovery, third party subpoenas and, most importantly, decades of collective experience aggressively investigating the business and financial affairs of debtors and their insiders. The Firms’ attorneys have deep and broad experience and expertise conducting fulsome investigations of debtors, even when their pre-petition business and financial activities stretch beyond the jurisdiction in which they filed for bankruptcy protection. Thomas H. Curran Associates has worked with some of the leading forensic, solvency and accounting firms around the globe. By way of example, the Firm’s attorneys have investigated and pursued debtors in Florida, New York, Nevada, Utah, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire domestically, and beyond that, to the UK, Ireland, Italy, South Africa, Panama and Cyprus among other domestic and foreign jurisdictions. Where necessary, Thomas H. Curran Associates also oversees foreign local counsel specially retained by the bankruptcy trustee to aid its investigations and/or to serve as a trustee’s foreign representative under the provisions of the UNCITRAL Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency or its local equivalents.

Bankruptcy investigations undertaken by Thomas H. Curran Associates’s attorneys have resulted in asset discovery, commencement of trustee avoidance and recovery action, case dismissals, case conversion, denial of discharge, plan denial, and further investigation by the U.S. Trustee’s office. Trustees and creditors can rely on Thomas H. Curran Associates’s extensive experience to ensure that a debtor’s pre-petition and ongoing business and financial affairs are fully investigated and that they have the accurate and comprehensive information necessary to make informed decisions throughout a bankruptcy case.