US Trustee Bankruptcy Fee Hike for Exide Technologies Upheld

A huge increase in U.S. Trustee quarterly fees facing bankrupt Exide Technologies is constitutional even though the hike was imposed years after its reorganization plan was approved in 2015, a Delaware bankruptcy judge ruled.

The fee increases aren’t really applied retroactively, Judge Mary Walrath of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware ruled Thursday. They’re triggered when the bankrupt debtor makes distributions and are similar to a new tax created after a bankruptcy filing, she said.

The judge also rejected Exide’s argument that the fee hike wasn’t uniformly applied across the country, saying that was not a defect ...