Researching a Company's Legal Proceedings: Bankruptcy

• News
• Court Documents

Factiva

​

Factiva has a good interface for searching for articles about a company that are related to a specific topic such as bankruptcy.  To locate articles on a company's bankruptcy:

1. Open Factiva.  Search for the company in the main search bar.
2. Notice the top fields at the top of the results which may include News, Signals, Reports, Financials and Regulatory Filings if applicable.  Click on each tab to open the corresponding information.
3. To find legal related action, use the Filter and under Subjects select Crime/Legal Action.

Bloomberg

Per the reference librarians at the UVA Law Library, Bloomberg Law is the preferred source for finding dockets from bankruptcy proceedings as it pulls directly from the US Court's Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) service.  We have limited access to Bloomberg Law through our Bloomberg terminals in the Capital Markets room.

To find dockets using Bloomberg Law:

1. Sign on to one of the Bloomberg terminals and open the Bloomberg application.
2. In the command line, enter BLAW
3. Bloomberg Law opens in a browser window
4. For Court Opinions go to Litigation: Court Opinions and expand Federal then select U.S. Bankruptcy Courts & BAP. 
5. For Dockets go to Litigation: Dockets Search and expand Federal then select U.S. Bankruptcy Courts & BAP. 

Claims Agents' Websites

Claims agents are sometimes assigned to major bankruptcy cases to perform administrative functions including providing access to dockets through a website dedicated to the case.  Dockets pulled from claims agents' case websites should be checked against dockets from PACER (either through Bloomberg Law or PACER itself as described below) to ensure accuracy.  Still, claims agents' case websites can be a useful tool to identify what dockets you need to complete your research.

To utilize a claims agent website, you will have to figure out which claims agent is assigned to a case.  Depending on what bankruptcy court a case is in, finding this information can be relatively straightforward or require a bit of digging.

The following US Bankruptcy Courts maintain lists of which claims agent is assigned to their cases:

• Delaware, District of - Claims Agency Cases
• Illinois, Northern District of - Megacase Information
• Indiana, Southern District of - Megacases and Claims Agent Links
• Nevada, District of - Mega Cases (not all cases have a claims agent)
• Texas, Northern District of - Claims Registers (not all cases have a claims agent)

If the case you're looking at is not in one of the courts listed above, try a web search for [Company name] bankruptcy dockets or [Company name] bankruptcy claims agent.  If you can't find anything, feel free to ask a librarian for help.

Please note that not all bankruptcy cases have claims agents assigned to them.

Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER)

PACER is a service provided by the US Court system to allow public access to court records.  Anyone is able to make an account and search for and view dockets from bankruptcy cases, though there are small fees associated with using the service.  More information about the service can be found in the PACER Frequently Asked Questions.

In many cases, it may be helpful to contact the Law Library for more in-depth legal research guidance.

Contact Law Library reference

refdesk@law.virginia.edu
(434) 924-7465

The Darden reference librarians are also willing to contact the Law Library on your behalf.