What happened? What’s next? – Are we done with 2020 yet?
“Under 11 US.C. § 547 of U.S. bankruptcy code, payments made by a company during the final 90 days prior to the filing of bankruptcy are considered “preference” payments and are subject to “clawback” provisions by bankruptcy trustees seeking to acquire necessary funds to pay remaining claims.
Authorized by Dean trustees, ASK LLP sent “avoidance claim settlement offer” letters to an estimated 500 former Dean milk suppliers, asking them to return at least partial payments for milk delivered to the company beginning approximately Aug. 14 through Nov. 11, 2019.
One legal defense against the claims is when the payments received by farmers and/or haulers from Dean were in the “ordinary course of business.”
In addition to actions taken in Pennsylvania, the American Farm Bureau Federation sent a letter to ASK LLP, calling for an immediate reversal of their “predatory shakedown” and threatening potential legal action if the firm failed to withdraw the letters sent to farmers.”
