NexPoint Advisors, L.P. v. Highland Capital Mgmt. (In re Highland Capital Mgmt.)
| Decision Date | 19 August 2022 |
| Docket Number | 21-10449 |
| Parties | In the Matter of: Highland Capital Management, L.P., Debtor, v. Highland Capital Management, L.P., Appellee. NexPoint Advisors, L.P.; Highland Capital Management Fund Advisors, L.P.; Highland Income Fund; NexPoint Strategic Opportunities Fund; Highland Global Allocation Fund; NexPoint Capital, Incorporated; James Dondero; The Dugaboy Investment Trust; Get Good Trust, Appellants, |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Appeal from the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Texas USDC No. 19-34054 USDC No. 3:21-CV-538
Before WIENER, GRAVES, and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges.
Highland Capital Management, L.P., a Dallas-based investment firm managed billion-dollar, publicly traded investment portfolios for nearly three decades. By 2019, however, myriad unpaid judgments and liabilities forced Highland Capital to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This provoked a nasty breakup between Highland Capital and its co-founder James Dondero. Under those trying circumstances, the bankruptcy court successfully mediated with the largest creditors and ultimately confirmed a reorganization plan amenable to most of the remaining creditors.
Dondero and other creditors unsuccessfully objected to the confirmation order and then sought review in this court. In turn, Highland Capital moved to dismiss their appeal as equitably moot. First, we hold that equitable mootness does not bar our review of any claim. Second, we affirm the confirmation order in large part. We reverse only insofar as the plan exculpates certain non-debtors in violation of 11 U.S.C. § 524(e), strike those few parties from the plan's exculpation, and affirm on all remaining grounds.
In 1993, Mark Okada and appellant James Dondero co-founded Highland Capital Management, L.P. ("Highland Capital") in Dallas. Highland Capital managed portfolios and assets for other investment advisers and funds through a complex of entities under the Highland umbrella. Highland Capital's ownership-interest holders included Hunter Mountain Investment Trust (99.5%); appellant The Dugaboy Investment Trust, Dondero's family trust (0.1866%);[1] Okada, personally and through trusts (0.0627%); and Strand Advisors, Inc. (0.25%), the only general partner, which Dondero wholly owned.
Dondero also manages two of Highland Capital's clients-appellants Highland Capital Management Fund Advisors, L.P. and NexPoint Advisors, L.P. (the "Advisors"). Both the Advisors and Highland Capital serviced and advised billion-dollar, publicly traded investment funds for appellants Highland Income Fund, NexPoint Strategic Opportunities Fund, Highland Global Allocation Fund, and NexPoint Capital, Inc. (collectively, the "Funds"), among others. For example, on behalf of the Funds, Highland Capital managed certain investment vehicles known as collateral loan obligations ("CLOs") under individualized servicing agreements.
Strapped with a series of unpaid judgments, Highland Capital filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the District of Delaware in October 2019. The creditors included Highland Capital's interest holders, business affiliates, contractors, former partners, employees, defrauded investors, and unpaid law firms. Among those creditors, the Office of the United States Trustee appointed a four-member Unsecured Creditors' Committee (the "Committee").[2] See 11 U.S.C. § 1102(a)(1), (b)(1). Throughout the bankruptcy proceedings, the Committee investigated Highland Capital's past and current operations, oversaw its continuing operations, and negotiated the reorganization plan. See id. § 1103(c). Upon the Committee's request, the court transferred the case to the Northern District of Texas in December 2019.
Highland Capital's reorganization did not proceed under the governance of a traditional Chapter 11 trustee. Instead, the Committee reached a corporate governance settlement agreement to displace Dondero, which the bankruptcy court approved in January 2020. Under the agreed order, Dondero stepped down as director and officer of Highland Capital and Strand to be an unpaid portfolio manager and "agreed not to cause any Related Entity . . . to terminate any agreements" with Highland Capital. The Committee selected a board of three independent directors to act as a quasitrustee and to govern Strand and Highland Capital: James Seery Jr., John Dubel, and retired Bankruptcy Judge Russell Nelms (collectively, the "Independent Directors"). The order also barred any claim against the Independent Directors in their official roles without the bankruptcy court's authorizing the claim as a "colorable claim[] of willful misconduct or gross negligence." Six months later, at the behest of the creditors, the bankruptcy court appointed Seery as Highland Capital's Chief Executive Officer, Chief Restructuring Officer, and Foreign Representative. The order contained an identical bar on claims against Seery acting in these roles. Neither order was appealed.
Throughout summer 2020, Dondero proposed several reorganization plans, each opposed by the Committee and the Independent Directors. Unpersuaded by Dondero, the Committee and Independent Directors negotiated their own plan. When Dondero's plans failed, he and other creditors began to frustrate the proceedings by objecting to settlements, appealing orders, seeking writs of mandamus, interfering with Highland Capital's management, threatening employees, and canceling trades between Highland Capital and its clients. See Highland Cap. Mgmt., L.P. v. Dondero (In re Highland Cap. Mgmt., L.P.), Ch. 11 Case No. 19-34054-SGJ11, Adv. No. 20-03190-SGJ11, 2021 WL 2326350, at *1, *26 (Bankr. N.D. Tex. June 7, 2021) ( Dondero in civil contempt, sanctioning him $100,000, and comparing this case to a "nasty divorce"). In Seery's words, Dondero wanted to "burn the place down" because he did not get his way. The Independent Directors insisted Dondero resign from Highland Capital, which he did in October 2020.
Highland Capital, meanwhile, proceeded toward confirmation of its reorganization plan-the Fifth Amended Plan of Reorganization of Highland Capital Management, L.P. (the "Plan"). In August 2020, the Independent Directors filed the Plan and an accompanying disclosure statement with the support of the Committee. See 11 U.S.C. §§ 1121, 1125. The bankruptcy court approved the statement as well as proposed notice and voting procedures for creditors, teeing up confirmation. Leading up to the confirmation hearing, the Advisors and the Funds asked the court to bar Highland Capital from trading or disposing of CLO assets pending confirmation. The bankruptcy court denied the request, and Highland Capital declined to voluntarily abstain and continued to manage the CLO assets.
Before confirmation, Dondero and other creditors (including several non-appellants) filed over a dozen objections to the Plan. Like Dondero, the United States Trustee primarily objected to the Plan's exculpation of certain non-debtors as unlawful. Highland Capital voluntarily modified the Plan to resolve six such objections. The Plan proposed to create eleven classes of creditors and equity holders and three classes of administrative claimants. See 11 U.S.C. § 1122. Of the voting-eligible classes, classes 2, 7, and 9 voted to accept the Plan while classes 8, 10, and 11 voted to reject it.
The Plan works like this: It dissolves the Committee, and creates four entities-the Claimant Trust, the Reorganized Debtor, HCMLP GP LLC,[3]and the Litigation Sub-Trust. Administered by its trustee Seery, the Claimant Trust "wind[s]-down" Highland Capital's estate over approximately three years by liquidating its assets and issuing distributions to class-8 and -9 claimants as trust beneficiaries. Highland Capital vests its ongoing servicing agreements with the Reorganized Debtor, which "among other things" continues to manage the CLOs and other investment portfolios. The Reorganized Debtor's only general partner is HCMLP GP LLC. And the Litigation Sub-Trust resolves pending claims against Highland Capital under the direction of its trustee Marc Kirschner.
The whole operation is overseen by a Claimant Trust Oversight Board (the "Oversight Board") comprised of four creditor representatives and one restructuring advisor. The Claimant Trust wholly owns the limited partnership interests in the Reorganized Debtor, HCMLP GP LLC, and the Litigation Sub-Trust. The Claimant Trust (and its interests) will dissolve either at the soonest of three years after the effective date (August 2024) or (1) when it is unlikely to obtain additional proceeds to justify further action, (2) all claims and objections are resolved, (3) all distributions are made, and (4) the Reorganized Debtor is dissolved.
Anticipating Dondero's continued litigiousness, the Plan shields Highland Capital and bankruptcy participants from lawsuits through an exculpation provision, which is enforced by an injunction and a gatekeeper provision (collectively, "protection provisions"). The protection provisions extend to nearly all bankruptcy participants: Highland Capital and its employees and CEO; Strand; the Independent Directors; the Committee; the successor entities and Oversight Board; professionals retained in this case; and all "Related Persons"[4] (collectively, "protected parties").[5]
The Plan exculpates the protected parties from claims based on any conduct "in connection with or arising out of" (1) the filing and administration of the case, (2) the negotiation and solicitation of votes preceding the Plan, (3) the consummation, implementation, and funding of the Plan (4) the offer, issuance, and distribution of securities...
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