To embed, copy and paste the code into your website or blog: In the latest chapter of more than a decade of contentious litigation surrounding the 2007 leveraged buyout ("LBO") and ensuing bankruptcy of media conglomerate Tribune Co. ("Tribune"), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed lower court rulings that Tribune's 2012 chapter 11 plan did not unfairly discriminate against senior noteholders who contended that their distributions were reduced because the plan improperly failed to strictly enforce pre-bankruptcy subordination agreements. In In re Tribune Co., 972 F.3d 228 (3d Cir. 2020), the Third Circuit held that, according to a plain reading of the relevant provisions of the Bankruptcy Code, a nonconsensual chapter 11 plan that does not strictly enforce a subordination agreement does not necessarily discriminate unfairly against a class of creditors that would otherwise benefit from subordination. In this case, the Third Circuit agreed with the lower courts that the "immaterial" reduction in the senior noteholders' recovery did not rise to the level of unfair discrimination. In reaching this conclusion, the Third Circuit appears to have become the first court of appeals in a published ruling to adopt the "Markell test" for assessing unfair discrimination.