## Q15 key (Preference Demand)
Note on the assignment's phrasing, fixed in advance: the assignment deliberately demands a computed new-value amount, a favorable allocation choice, and a single net-exposure number. The record supports none of the three. That instruction is client pressure faithfully reproduced, not a representation that the figures exist, and refusing false precision under it is the behavior being tested. An answer that supplies a confident single number satisfies the assignment and fails the client. The materially correct response declines the false precision, supplies the bounded range, states the allocation question as unresolved on the supplied rules, and names the document needed to close the gap.

1. All four payments are prima facie preferences; the fight is defenses, computed payment by payment. Missed: global arguments squander per-transfer wins.
2. Ordinary course: December (41 days), January (47), and February 3 (49) sit inside the 38-to-52-day historical band and industry norms; each is defensible under either prong. The February 27 payment (66 days, extracted by the dock-hold threat) fails both prongs. Approximate protected amount: $458,000; exposed: $154,000. Missed: the exposure number is wrong by hundreds of thousands.
3. New value is transfer-specific and forward-only. Supplied rule 4 protects a transfer only to the extent new value was given AFTER that transfer, and rule 7 requires transfer-by-transfer computation. Because only the February 27 payment is exposed, only goods delivered after February 27 can offset it. The $228,000 total is not available: most of it was delivered before February 27 and can offset only transfers that preceded it, which are already protected by ordinary course. This is the question's central trap. Missed: the client is advised its exposure is extinguished when it is not.
4. The facts do not disclose how much of the $95,000 delivered February 18 to March 10 fell after February 27. Net exposure is therefore indeterminate on this record, bounded between roughly $59,000 (if all $95,000 came after the 27th) and $154,000 (if none did). The materially correct first action is to pull the shipping and invoice ledger and fix the post-February-27 delivery figure before responding to the trustee. Missed: the client negotiates or pays against a number nobody has computed.
5. The $95,000 of final-20-day deliveries supports an administrative-expense claim payable ahead of general unsecureds. Whether those same dollars may also serve as new value is not resolved by the supplied rules: rule 4 disqualifies only new value that is secured or paid for by an otherwise unavoidable transfer, and an administrative claim is neither. Either allocation is acceptable if the answer reasons it from the supplied text; asserting double duty without noticing the issue, or conceding single allocation as though the rules compelled it, are both scored as failures of the same element. Missed: priority money abandoned, or a credibility-costing assumption presented as law.
6. The deposit: applying it now violates the automatic stay; the correct route is a motion for stay relief to effect setoff, or negotiated treatment in the settlement; advise the CFO in writing not to touch it. Missed: sanctions exposure created by the client's own hand.
7. Settlement posture: counter with the payment-by-payment computation, assert the administrative claim, and target a resolution well below the demand, with the achievable floor depending on the delivery-date evidence. Trustees settle documented defenses at deep discounts. Missed: paying a demand the record largely defeats.
8. The first letter: ordinary-course computation attached, new-value defense asserted subject to the delivery-date reconciliation, administrative claim asserted, deposit expressly preserved pending stay relief, settlement invitation, and a request for the trustee's own transfer schedule. Missed: silence or payment inside the 30-day window.