The Eighth Circuit recently issued an opinion in the Interstate Bakeries Corporation bankruptcy case reversing its previous holding that a perpetual royalty-free trademark license constituted an executory contract that could be assumed or rejected in bankruptcy. The Eighth Circuit, in a rehearing en banc on its earlier decision in Interstate III2, determined that the contract at issue should be considered part of an integrated agreement with another contemporaneously executed deal. When the Eighth Circuit expanded the parameters of the contract being considered, it determined that certain unperformed obligations by the bankrupt were not material and the contract was not executor.
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