Can a corporation that is/has gone through bankruptcy demand vendor payments be retur

[mudechevy]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Florida

Dh's company got a letter from a lawyer today stating that his company was paid $XX by a company that he did work for. He was in fact paid this money because he did work for them. The company is demanding that he pay back all that money that they paid him during the time they were filing bankruptcy or they will file a lawsuit. Can they do this?

[rhinocl]

They probably don't have a winnable case if the payment was reasonable in relationship to what they got.
Here is the bad part however:the bankruptcy judge can order return of anything he deems a preference payment. If they owed a lot of vendors and only paid you, he can make you toss it back in to the pool so it can be split with others in proportion to the amounts owed to each, with modifications as dictated by law. Then you are in the position of effectively having lost a suit you didn't get a chance to defend. And the defenses you could argue to the bankruptcy judge are pretty limited.
It seems weird they didn't go the 2nd route, I may be missing something,so if there is a lot at stake call a lawyer.

[haplesshome45]

The "lawyer" writing the demand letter may well be the Trustee. The Trustee generally has the ability to demand return of all payments made by the bankrupt in the ordinary course of business to its vendor creditors for the 90 days prior to the filing of the bankruptcy.

The Trustee can file an Adversary Proceeding in the USBC to enforce the collection. He will prevail. Then again, he may never file. Some Trustees just send out Letters, but do not file an adversary proceeding for amounts even as high as $5,000. On a practical level it is not worth their while.

The only defense that I can see would be to argue that the payments were not for ordinary business activities. Those would be specialized situations.

This assumes that the debtor corporation is still in the bankruptcy court system. If the company has been discharged, then the case is wound up, the Trustee is gone, and I cannot see how a post-bankrupt estate has a claim on payments made within the bankruptcy.