Bill D. Bensinger
Partner
Phone: 205-250-6626
Fax: 205-328-7234
Email: bdbensinger@csattorneys.com
Staff: Julie Guier
Staff Phone: 205-795-6556
Staff Email: jgguier@csattorneys.com
Alabama, 2003
- St. John’s University School of Law, 2005, Masters of Laws in Bankruptcy
- Cumberland School of Law at Samford University , 2003, J.D.
- Samford University, 1998, B.S., Business Administration
Bill Bensinger focuses his practice on commercial dispute litigation, bankruptcy and restructuring litigation. He represents creditors, franchisors, landlords, unsecured creditors’ committees and financial institutions in a wide variety of matters, including preference and avoidance actions, workout transactions and insolvency matters.
Bill represents franchisors in bankruptcy, including matters concerning the assumption of franchise agreements, and represents landlords in bank matters concerning the assumption of commercial leases. His work on behalf of financial institutions includes general creditor’s rights litigation, collection, lien enforcement, cash collateral, relief from stay, and plan confirmation issues.
- American Bankruptcy Institute: Member
- American Bar Association (ABA): Member
- Alabama State Bar: Member
- Coach of the Cumberland School of Law team for the annual Conrad B. Duberstein National Bankruptcy Moot Court Competition (2012 – 2018; 2008 – 2010)
- Recognized in Chambers USA for Bankruptcy/Restructuring: Alabama
- Selected for inclusion by The Best Lawyers in America® in 2018-2021 for Bankruptcy and Creditor Debtor Rights/Insolvency and Reorganization Law; Litigation – Bankruptcy
- Selected for inclusion by Alabama Super Lawyers® in 2012 – 2015 as a Rising Star in the field of Business Litigation (Bankruptcy and Creditors’ Rights); in Mid-South Region Super Lawyers in 2019 in the field of Bankruptcy, Business
- Represented Mission Coal Company, LLC and its affiliates in their Chapter 11 cases in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Alabama. The company was headquartered in Kingsport, Tennessee with coal mining operations in West Virginia and Alabama. Mission Coal entered Chapter 11 to complete a sale process and, after an auction, received winning bids for three of its metallurgical coal mines. The company also successfully obtained court approval to modify its collective bargaining agreements through sections 1113 and 1114. After a highly contested plan and sale process, Mission Coal obtained the support of its DIP Lenders, reached a settlement with the unsecured creditors committee, and as a result, in May 2019 the Court simultaneously approved the sales and confirmed the plan.
- Counsel to the official committee of unsecured creditors of Walter Energy, Inc. and its affiliates in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Alabama. Walter, a major producer of metallurgical coal, struggled as a result of the precipitous fall in the price of metallurgical coal in 2015 and eventually was forced to seek bankruptcy protection in July 2015 in an effort to restructure its more than $3.1 billion in debt.
- Counsel for the creditor-appellant in Blue Bell Creameries, Inc. v. William Kaye, Trustee (In re BFW Liquidation, LLC), 2018 WL 3850101, 17-13588 (11th Cir. August 14, 2018), reversing 30 years of erroneous application of the new value defense statute within the Eleventh Circuit and holding that a creditor’s new value does not have to remain unpaid in order to qualify for the new value defense.
- Bullock v. BankChampaign, N.A., 133 S. Ct. 1754 (2013) – Counsel for respondent BankChampaign, N.A., in the Supreme Court’s only bankruptcy case in the October 2013 term, concerning a dispute over an exception to the bankruptcy discharge for debts incurred through “defalcation while acting in a fiduciary capacity.”
- Burgess v. Sikes, 438 F.3d 493 (5th Cir. 2003) – counsel for amici professors of law before the en banc Fifth Circuit, concerning the question of whether a crop disaster relief payment was property of the debtor’s estate.
- HB Logistics, LLC v. Pilot Travel Centers, LLC, 2013 Bankr. LEXIS 5223 (Bankr. N.D. Ala. December 13, 2013) – counsel for defendant in a preference action successfully arguing that the Eleventh Circuit’s case In re Jet Florida System, Inc., does not require that the new value “remain unpaid.”
- Author, Proving Reliance in a Section 523(a)(2)(B) Case, Norton Journal of Bankruptcy Law and Practice (December 2019)
- Author, Severance Claims Pursuant to Pre-Petition Employment Contracts Are Not Entitled to Administrative Expense Priority, Norton Journal of Bankruptcy Law and Practice (December 2018)
- Author, The Facts of the Legal Fiction – Extending the Automatic Stay to Non-Debtors, Norton Annual Survey of Bankruptcy Law, Part I (September 2015)
- Author, Alabama’s Southern District Bankruptcy Court Addresses Differences Between Claims on Open Accounts, Claims for Accounts Stated, Christian & Small Nonstop Insights Blog (February 2015)
- Author, If You Want a Third-Party Release, You Have to Prove It, Norton Journal of Bankruptcy Law and Practice (May 2012)
- Author, Context is King-Twombly, Iqbal and the Art of Pleading in Bankruptcy, Norton Bankruptcy Law Adviser (November 2010).
- Author, Jasco Tools, Inc. v. Dana Corp. – A Primer for Summary Judgment in Bankruptcy, Norton Journal of Bankruptcy Law and Practice (April 2010).
- Presenter – “Landlord-Tenant Rights in Bankruptcy,” University of Alabama School of Law CLE (August 2009).
- Author, Modification of Collective Bargaining Agreements: Does a Breach Bar Rejection?, 13 Am. Bankr. Inst. L. Rev. 809 (2005).
- Author, Are Proceeds Paid Under a Post-Bankruptcy Statute on Account of a Debtor’s Prepetition Loss Property of the Estate?, Norton Bankruptcy Law Adviser (August 2005, at 2)
- Contributing Author, Norton Annual Survey of Bankruptcy Law
