New in ECF

This release was primarily applied in order to strengthen our system's integrity and security, and the public should not see any direct changes to our program.

The following changes will be effective in CM/ECF beginning on June 26, 2017. The changes include the addition of new events, event modifications, and event deactivation.

The following changes will be effective in CM/ECF beginning on June 2, 2017. The changes include the addition of new events, event modifications, and event deactivation.

• New Official Bankruptcy Forms will become effective December 1, 2015.
• The case opening process for voluntary and involuntary bankruptcy cases remains the same.
• CM/ECF bankruptcy case opening screens will be modified to include some changes to the new 2015 forms, petition, and schedules.

The current Voluntary and Involuntary petitions will be broken into five separate forms (See image). Most of the form changes involve separating the forms by the type of debtor. There are now separate forms for individual debtors and non-individual debtors.  However, there will be one docketing event for a voluntary or involuntary petition.

• The former B1 Voluntary Petition form will now be separated into the B101 Voluntary Petition for Individuals, the B201 Voluntary Petition for Non-Individuals and there is now a separate B401 petition for a Chapter 15 Petition.
• The former B5 Involuntary Petition will also be separated by debtor type. There will be an Involuntary Petition against an Individual and an Involuntary Petition against a non-Individual.

The new petitions provide new options that will be collected in CM/ECF for statistical reporting. Some of the changes include:

• Form is now 8 pages in length.
• Credit counseling information from former Exhibit D now included as part of the petition.
• Chapter 7 and 11 individual business data.
• Estimated Assets and Estimated Liabilities Code J (More than $1 Billion) has been expanded to 3 more levels ranging from $1,000,000,001 to More than $50 billion for both individual and non-individual debtors.
• Two new Natures of Business options for Non-Individual filers have been added, Investment Company and Investment Advisor. The value of Other has been changed to None of the Above.
• A new statistical NAICS business code has been added. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) is the standard used by Federal statistical agencies in classifying business types.
• There is a new Nature of Foreign Proceeding selection when opening a chapter 15 case.
• There is no longer any statistical reporting for Chapter 15 case opening except for Fee status.

There are new form numbers and form names for schedules.

• Schedules A and B are combined into Schedule A/B. (Forms B106A/B and B206A/B.)
• Schedules E and F are combined into Schedule E/F. (Forms B106E/F and B206E/F.)

• Although the schedule forms are combined, there are still separate fields for:
  • Real estate/property (Formerly Schedule A).
  • Personal property (Formerly Schedule B).
  • Priority unsecured claims (Formerly Schedule E).
  • Non-priority unsecured claims (Formerly Schedule F).
• Schedules I and J are not required for non-individual debtors.
• Expenses for separate household of Debtor 2 have been separated out into a new Form B106J-2.  
• The Summary of Schedules is now the Summary of Your Assets and Liabilities and Certain Statistical Information.

A Really Simple Syndication (RSS) Feed option is now available in CM/ECF. The feed provides users links to the docket sheet and documents. A standard RSS reader is not provided with CM/ECF, but the software supports the readers included with the standard supported browsers (e.g., Internet Explorer, Firefox). Users can subscribe to a (RSS) feed of activity made to cases.

Access to the RSS feed can be found on the Court Information page under the Utilities menu, Miscellaneous section. Clicking on the Entries made in the last 12 hours - Public Users hyperlink provides the CM/ECF user with a list of all entries made during this time period. In the yellow box at the top of the page is a hyperlink to Subscribe to this feed. PACER users do not incur any fees for viewing data provided by the RSS feed. Docket text is NOT displayed, just the short description of the docket event used. If the user clicks a hyperlink from the list provided (case number/title of case or document number of the entry made), the user will be prompted to login to PACER and PACER fees will be incurred.

PACER Links in CM/ECF

Two new menu selections appear under the Utilities menu to allow you to navigate quickly between CM/ECF and PACER. You won’t have to leave your CM/ECF session to access another court in PACER or to use the PACER Case Locator. Docket Report Enhancements

The Create Appendix option has been modified so you have more flexibility in customizing a docket report. Now you can select only the entries you want and whether you want the PDF document appended to this customized report. Or, if you just want an abbreviated docket report without attached PDF documents, you can select only the entries you need for the task at hand.

Page Counts on Docket Report - The number of pages for documents associated with a docket entry is a new option.

Critical Deadlines and Dates on the Docket Report - Additional dates and deadlines now display on the caption of the docket report. A link to the Claims Register appears whenever a case has claims filed.

Docket Activity Report

The Docket Activity Report has been enhanced to include time filters. The report can be run in time increments, rather than running the report for the entire day. A new clock icon also offers an alternative to typing in the time.

Calendars and 341 Meeting - You can now view All Hearings without the 341Meeting settings included. A 341Meeting selection has been added to the hearing type list. Query

New query options have been added:

Filed Date range,

Last Entry Date range

Nature of Suit.

Mobile Query – You can now access case information in a mobile friendly format by navigating to the mobile query link from your tablet or mobile device.

Multiple Social Security Numbers

CM/ECF now allows up to five social security numbers and tax identifications numbers for each debtor and joint debtor.

After a social security number is entered a plus icon appears beside the SSN/TaxID/EIN field. If the debtor or joint debtor has another SSN/TaxID/EIN, click the “plus” icon for another field to be displayed for additional number(s). CM/ECF will now format the numbers if you don’t insert hyphens.

Notice of Electronic Filing

In prior releases, when an attorney represented more than one party in a case, the attorney’s email and party information were listed on the Notice of Electronic Filing (NEF) only for the first party. Now the attorney is listed for each party they represent.
Attorney and Party Association

When an attorney or trustee files a pleading, they are prompted to indicate whether they should be linked to the party they represent. In prior releases, the checkbox for the association with the attorney and party was unchecked and if the filer did not check the box, the association was not made. The checkbox for the association with the attorney and party is now checked by default. The message has been updated to reflect the implications of omitting this necessary association.
Cases Report

Split, transferred and reopened dates have been added to the selection screen
Claims Summary Report

A Claims Summary Report option has been added to the Claims Register. This new format gives the viewer a snapshot overview of the claims on the case.

Claims Register View Multiple Documents
You can now view multiple documents from the Claims Register in one PDF file. This is the same functionality as View multiple documents on the Docket Report. This feature will enable you to generate selected PDF claims with any related attachments in one PDF document.

Transfer of Claims Fee

Effective May 1, 2013, all bankruptcy courts nation-wide will charge a new fee of $25 for each transfer of claim filed. The Judicial Conference of the United States approved this fee at its September 2012 session.

Bankruptcy Rule 3001(e) requires the clerk of court to notice a transferred claim, and provides additional notice and hearing requirements if an objection to a claim transfer is made. In considering this fee, the Judicial Conference recognized the impact a claim transfer has on the workload, court time and resources of the bankruptcy courts.
At the time of filing, the fee is assessed upon and is obligated to be paid by the person or entity filing a claim transfer, irrespective of whether the filing is made by or on behalf of the claim transferee or transferor. The fee applies to all claim transfers, whether asserting a full or partial transfer of a claim. Additionally, any filed document that purports to transfer ownership of a claim (such as for example, an amendment to a claim), will be assessed the fee. In the event multiple claim transfers are filed at one time (such as for example, by claims upload or batch filing), the $25 fee will be charged for each individual claim transfer.

Case Conversion

Previously, if a case was converted and re-converted, the Notice of Bankruptcy Case Filing query screen reflected the converted chapter rather than the original chapter. Now the original chapter is saved permanently in a new field. The original chapter will be correct for cases filed and converted after Release 5.

Fee Receipts

The Docket Report will now display a related document hyperlink for payment receipts whose transactions were processed by Pay.gov.