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Comment by ensignavenger | Hacker News Reader

Bankruptcy law is federal law, Delaware law has nothing to do with it.

They typically file in the United States Court for the District of Delaware, a federal court located in Delaware. Delaware law plays a significant part in these cases even though they’re in Fed court. Corporate charters, filings, fiduciary duties, property rights, choice of laws, etc etc etc are all determined by Delaware law and used in the federal court.

Federal Bankruptcy Law provides the procedural framework.

So, Delaware law does in fact have nearly everything to do with it.

> Federal Bankruptcy Law provides the procedural framework.

Federal bankruptcy law sets the substantive as well as procedural rules for bankruptcy, and its substantive provisions trump any state law, but, OTOH, state law has some role both in determining what the set of claims going in to bankruptcy are and, to the extent permitted in federal bankruptcy law, setting things like allowable personal exemptions, etc.

Yep! This is all correct. The point remains, however, that Delaware law does have a substantial amount to do with bankruptcy proceedings in Delaware, which is really the point I was responding to.

I may have been wrong to say "nothing" but from what I understand Delaware law has very little to do with it and I don't see how it would be relevant to this particular ruling, but I am always open to learning more as I find the topic of law quite interesting.

This bankruptcy was filed in Texas.

How would the corporate charter affect the fairness of how the auction was conducted?

I don’t know in this case specifically. In the typical case though I’ve seen corporate charters enhance fiduciary duties, I’ve seen them specify auction procedures, I’ve seen them give certain classes certain rights, and most importantly for this case I’ve seen them define corporate governance during the auction sale.

So potentially has massive implications for the auction and its fairness.

There are (AFAIK) no Federally-incorporated firms though

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