Bankruptcy is getting its own standard for testimony by video.
On December 1, three linked amendments to the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure pull contested matters out from under Civil Rule 43. A witness appearing from another location in a contested matter will no longer require compelling circumstances, only cause and appropriate safeguards. Three consequences for practicing attorneys.
By Helena Harper, Editorial Director
The change
A package of amendments to the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure takes effect on December 1, 2026. The Judicial Conference approved it at its September 2025 session on the recommendation of the Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, the Supreme Court adopted it, and the Chief Justice reported it to Congress on April 8, 2026. Under Section 2075 of Title 28 of the United States Code, bankruptcy rules must reach Congress by May 1 of the year they are to take effect and cannot take effect earlier than December 1 of the year they are transmitted.
The package amends Rules 1007, 2007.1, 3001, 3018, 5009, 9006, 9014 and 9017, and adds one new rule, Rule 7043. The part most likely to change what a hearing looks like is a three-way rearrangement of how testimony gets taken, and it draws a line that bankruptcy practice has not had before: contested matters and adversary proceedings will be governed by different standards for a witness who is not in the room.
How a bankruptcy witness gets on a screen today
Two rules currently do the work. Rule 9017 makes the Federal Rules of Evidence and Civil Rules 43, 44 and 44.1 applicable in a bankruptcy case. Civil Rule 43(a) supplies the default that trial testimony be taken in open court unless a federal statute, the Federal Rules of Evidence, the civil rules or other rules adopted by the Supreme Court provide otherwise, and then permits a court to allow testimony in open court by contemporaneous transmission from a different location "for good cause in compelling circumstances and with appropriate safeguards."
Rule 9014(d) currently reaches the same place by reference. It provides that a witness's testimony on a disputed material factual issue in a contested matter must be taken in the same manner as testimony in an adversary proceeding. Since an adversary proceeding runs on Civil Rule 43, so does the contested matter.
The distinction matters because most bankruptcy litigation is not an adversary proceeding. Rule 7001 lists the categories that must be brought as one: recovering money or property, determining the validity, priority or extent of a lien, objecting to or revoking a discharge, determining whether a debt is dischargeable, obtaining an injunction or other equitable relief, subordinating a claim, and a handful of others. Everything else that is disputed and not otherwise governed by the rules arrives as a motion, which Rule 9014 turns into a contested matter. Relief from stay, use of cash collateral, objections to claims and objections to confirmation all live there.
What the amendments do
According to the Judicial Conference report, the amendments make three moves. Rule 9017 is amended to eliminate the general applicability of Civil Rule 43 to all bankruptcy cases. New Rule 7043 then retains Civil Rule 43 for adversary proceedings, which keeps the compelling-circumstances standard in place for that half of the docket. Rule 9014 is amended to let a court in a contested matter permit remote witness testimony "for cause and with appropriate safeguards," which is to say without the finding of compelling circumstances that Civil Rule 43 requires.
The Committee's stated reason is that the two settings are not alike. Contested matters, the report explains, can usually be resolved less formally and more expeditiously by means of a hearing, often on the basis of uncontested testimony, and the change is intended to give bankruptcy courts greater flexibility there than in adversary proceedings. One drafting point emerged from the public comment period: the Advisory Committee revised the proposal to make clear that all testimony in a contested matter is governed by the rule, not only testimony offered on a motion.
The rest of the December package
Three other changes will show up in ordinary practice. Rule 3018 governs acceptance or rejection of a plan in a chapter 9 or chapter 11 case, and its subdivision (c) currently requires that an acceptance or rejection be in writing. The amendment authorizes a court to additionally treat a statement on the record by a creditor, or by the creditor's attorney or authorized agent, as an acceptance of a plan, with a conforming change to subdivision (a). After a public comment, the Advisory Committee clarified that the statement-on-the-record provision covers individual creditors, who may be self-represented, as well as counsel and agents.
Amendments to Rules 1007(c), 5009(b) and 9006(b) and (c) address a narrower and very practical problem: individual debtors whose cases close without a discharge because they did not take the required personal financial management course, or took it and never filed the documentation. Rule 1007 is amended to eliminate the deadlines for filing the certificate of course completion, with conforming changes to Rule 9006 removing the provisions on court alteration of those deadlines. Rule 5009 is amended to provide two notices instead of one reminding the debtor to take the course and file the certificate.
Rules 2007.1 and 3001 receive technical corrections, fixing references that were made in error when the Bankruptcy Rules were restyled. In Rule 3001(c), the sanctions provision is rewritten to apply when a claim holder fails to provide any information required by subdivision (c), rather than only the information required by two of its paragraphs, and the paragraphs are reordered so the sanctions provision follows the requirements it enforces.
What does not change
The default survives intact. Testimony on a disputed material factual issue is still supposed to be taken in open court, and the amended rule still conditions any other arrangement on a finding of cause and on appropriate safeguards. Neither the phrase nor the structure invites a standing practice of remote witnesses. What has moved is the height of the showing, not the shape of the inquiry.
The evidentiary rules are also untouched. Rule 9017 continues to make the Federal Rules of Evidence applicable in a bankruptcy case, and a witness who appears by contemporaneous transmission is examined under the same rules of evidence as a witness in the box. And the amendments address the taking of testimony. They say nothing about counsel appearing remotely for argument, which remains a matter of each court's own practice.
Three consequences for practicing attorneys
What changes, in practice, for lawyers who appear in bankruptcy court:
Two standards inside one case
After December 1, the same chapter 11 case can carry two different tests for putting a witness on a screen. An adversary proceeding keeps Civil Rule 43 and its compelling-circumstances requirement through new Rule 7043. A contested matter runs on amended Rule 9014. A request has to be pitched to the right one.
Open court is still the default
Neither rule makes a remote appearance the norm. Testimony on a disputed material factual issue still belongs in open court unless something else provides otherwise, and the amended rule still requires a court to find cause and to impose appropriate safeguards before a witness testifies from somewhere else.
The ask belongs before the hearing
Rule 9014(e) already obliges the court to tell the parties in advance whether witnesses may testify at a scheduled hearing. A lower standard does not shorten the runway: cause has to be presented, and safeguards set, while there is still time to arrange them.
Congress retains the ability to act on rules transmitted under Section 2075 before they take effect. Absent that, December 1 is the date, and the same package carries the amendment to Federal Rule of Evidence 801 that takes effect the same day.
For years, a lawyer asking to put a witness on a screen in a stay-relief hearing had to satisfy a test written for a civil trial, because a chain of cross-references said so. The showing was the same whether the hearing would run two hours or two weeks.
After December 1, the two are told apart. The formal proceeding keeps the demanding standard, and the motion practice that makes up most of a bankruptcy docket gets one calibrated to it. The open-court default is still the starting point, so the work moves to the record: what the cause is, what the safeguards will be, and when the court is told.
Archivar
The Archivar Editorial Desk
Fact-checked against the authorities listed below. This article is for general informational purposes and is not legal advice.
Sources: Report of the Judicial Conference Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, Agenda E-19 (Rules), September 2025; Administrative Office of the United States Courts, Pending Rules and Forms Amendments; Administrative Office of the United States Courts, Recent and Proposed Amendments to Federal Rules, Annual Report 2025; Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure 7001, 9014 and 9017 and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 43 (Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School); 28 U.S.C. section 2075; NACTT Academy, Bankruptcy Rule Amendments Taking Effect December 1, 2026 (July 19, 2026).
