BAPCPA’s Statistical Requirements Prompt CM/ECF Bankruptcy Release 3.1 for Linux and Revised/New Official Bankruptcy Forms
William C. Redden
U.S. Bankruptcy Court (E.D. Va.); Richmond, Va
Pursuant to §601 of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA), and as additionally required by the Judicial Conference Committee on the administration of the bankruptcy system, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AO) is now required to compile enumerated statistics collected by bankruptcy courts in certain chapter 7, 11 and 13 cases. As part of this new requirement, the AO must compile certain statistical information on bankruptcy cases under chapters 7, 11 and 13 of the Bankruptcy Code filed by individual debtors with primarily consumer debts. The AO must also make such data available to the public and publish a report on that compilation by July 1, 2008 (and annually thereafter). To assist with these requirements, the AO encouraged all bankruptcy courts to be live on CM/ECF Bankruptcy Release 3.1 for Linux (Bankruptcy Release 3.1) by Oct. 17, 2006. All bankruptcy courts must have completed the required upgrade to Bankruptcy Release 3.1 no later than Oct. 20, 2006, which is the effective date of the statistical reporting requirements set forth in BAPCPA. Several bankruptcy courts used the Columbus Day federal holiday weekend to migrate CM/ECF data from existing formats to Bankruptcy Release 3.1. For example, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia successfully migrated its CM/ECF data from Bankruptcy Release 3.0 for Linux to Bankruptcy Release 3.1 over the Columbus Day federal holiday weekend.