Restructuring & Insolvency
Squire Sanders restructuring and insolvency lawyers are recognized globally for their expertise and success in representing financial institutions, distressed companies, insolvency practitioners, creditors’ committees, investors, and strategic and financial buyers of troubled companies.
Squire Sanders has more than 90 restructuring and insolvency lawyers in 27 offices across 15 countries in the United States, the UK, Europe, Asia, and Central and South America. The strength and diversity of our practice across the globe mean we always act quickly and can be onsite anywhere in the world, with the capacity and experience to deal with multisite restructurings and insolvencies.
As compelling indications of our preeminent reputation, we have played key roles in some of the largest, most significant and highest profile restructurings and insolvencies in recent history including:
- Chapter 11 proceedings for:
- WorldCom (as co-counsel to the debtor)
- Enron (as co-counsel to the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors)
- Chrysler (as counsel for the Committee of Chrysler Affected Dealers)
- Phoenix Coyotes (as counsel to the debtor)
- AmFin Financial Corporation (as counsel to the debtor)
- The administrative receivership of the Arrows Formula 1 motor racing team (as lawyers to the administrative receivers)
- The administrations of:
- The Super Aguri Formula 1 motor racing team (as lawyers to the administrators)
- MG Rover Group (as lawyers to the administrators on pensions and cross-border issues)
- Global retail brands including Adams Childrenswear, Whittard of Chelsea and Cobra Beer (in various capacities including for management, financiers, administrators and buyers)
- Major UK insurance broker FirstCity Partnership (acting for the administrators and pension trustees)
- Major logistical supplier to the UK national rail network Gamble Rail Group
We are also experienced in complex cross-border insolvency matters (in particular under the EC Regulation on Insolvency Proceedings), representing parties in insolvency proceedings with US and UK ties and related proceedings in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, Brazil, Venezuela, Singapore and Hong Kong.
Most restructuring engagements are highly complex and require a significant amount of creativity, so we work with our clients and their financial professionals to develop strategies that advance their business interests and preserve and create value. We frequently coordinate our efforts with other Squire Sanders practice groups such as corporate finance, banking, capital markets, property, construction and planning, environmental, health and safety, labor and employment, pensions, intellectual property, litigation, and tax and benefits.
Our lawyers are recognized authors, serving as editors of and contributors to major textbooks in the field of restructurings, speaking at national and international conferences, serving on boards of directors of organizations such as the American Bankruptcy Institute, as well as being senior members of organizations such as R3 – the Association of Business Recovery Professionals and the Insolvency Lawyers’ Association. Four of our partners are Fellows of the American College of Bankruptcy.
We handle complex commercial financial reorganizations and insolvencies for clients in diverse industries including:
- Agribusiness
- Casinos
- Chemicals
- Construction
- Electricity generation
- Food manufacturing
- Franchised fast food operations
- Healthcare
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- High-tech manufacturing
- Infrastructure
- Insurance
- Investment and development real estate
- Professional sports clubs
- Resort hotels and Leisure
- Retail
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Our clients include:
- Bondholders
- Creditors’ committees
- Equity interests
- Financial and other institutional lenders
- Financiers
- Franchisors
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- Insolvency practitioners and other insolvency professionals
- Privately held companies
- Public companies
- Purchasers
- Secured lender committees
- Trustees of pension schemes
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We successfully employ “prepackaged” reorganizations that in the United States have resulted in confirmed plans of reorganization in just 28 to 88 days. In the retail industry, for example, we have helped chain stores, some with debt in excess of US$200 million, restructure successfully. In one such case, we were able to assist in the sale of all stores as going concerns within 60 days of the chain’s Chapter 11 filing. In the UK, we have used prepackaged reorganizations to save thousands of jobs across sectors as diverse as retail, healthcare, engineering and leisure, among others.
Our practice covers all formal categories of insolvency ranging from all forms of receivership, administration and liquidation to bankruptcy and voluntary arrangements. We also have a strong contentious team including accredited mediators with proven track records of success. We are dedicated to serving our clients’ needs across the full range of the recovery and insolvency sector and to ensuring a maximum recovery to stakeholders wherever a business faces financial difficulty.
Our experience covers a wide variety of engagements and a vast array of client industries including, among others,
automotive,
aviation,
chemicals, construction, distribution,
energy, entertainment and media,
financial institutions and services,
food and beverage,
healthcare, hospitality,
manufacturing,
professional services,
real estate,
retail and steel.
Practice Expertise
Representative Experience
- Representing CITIC Ka Wah Bank, a longstanding Hong Kong-based bank, as restructuring counsel. We advised the publicly listed bank in Hong Kong on the transfer of its US assets and banking licenses as a result of a major Hong Kong restructuring.
- Representing Japan-based Itochu Corporation and Toshiba Corporation in the restructuring of debt for a cement processing plant in Indonesia.
- Serving as counsel to a financial services affiliate of Cargill Financial, Inc., an international provider of food, agricultural and risk management products, which was a secured lender to RMA Management Systems, Inc., a company in a Chapter 11 case. Our work included addressing financing issues and potential sale of the debtor's business.
- Representing a major creditor to bankrupt Colorado airline, Frontier Airlines, in the successful prosecution of an action involving breach of a merger agreement.
- Representing the Mesaba Aviation Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors in the Chapter 11 case of a regional airline. We represented the committee in connection with the debtor’s efforts to monetize a substantial asset consisting of a claim against Northwest Airlines and in litigation concerning the debtor’s efforts to reject existing collective bargaining agreements with its pilots, flight attendants and mechanics, and avoidance actions belonging to the estate relating to prebankruptcy distributions made by the debtor to its nondebtor parent company.
- Representing Baptist Foundation of Arizona, a nonprofit debtor, in major parallel proceedings of Chapter 11 bankruptcy litigation and charges filed by the Arizona State Securities Commission; work included serving as lead trial lawyer to resolve the claims of nearly 15,000 investors and holders of US$700 million in debt securities to secure Chapter 11 plan confirmation; oversight of internal fact investigation; liaison with state investigatory authorities; and board interviews/background checks for the restructuring and postbankruptcy boards.
- Advising the liquidators of OBG Limited in relation to their appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg arising from the UK House of Lords decision that failed to uphold OBG’s rights to its intangible property.
- Representing Brazil's nuclear agency, Industrias Nucleares do Brasil, S/A, in the Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings of the world's largest trader of uranium. We also coordinated related litigation and arbitration in Rio de Janeiro, Bern and Hamburg.
- Handling the fast-track bankruptcy of Bryant Universal Roofing Co., a Phoenix-based large commercial roofing company, which allowed our client a quick sale of its assets. The buyer offered US$10.1 million, nearly all of which was used to assume the debt of one of our client's major creditors. The case is notable because it is rare to have all assets of a firm sold within 60 days after a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.
- Representing the superintendent of insurance for the state of New York, as rehabilitator, in discharging its duty to serve the interests of the insurer's claimants and creditors in the liquidation of an insurance company, Frontier Insurance. Our work included petitioning to stay the liquidation pending resolution of interstate law issues.
Case Studies
In an attempt to reverse the decline of its business, a failing Las Vegas hotel and casino claimed in court that our client had agreed to contribute US$60 million in new equity and guarantees. Facing a mix of restructuring and trial issues, the clien...
While the owner of the National Hockey League’s Phoenix Coyotes waded through an historic bankruptcy proceeding in 2009, Squire Sanders helped lead the way toward an unprecedented resolution.
The Coyotes had moved to Arizona from Winnipeg, Manitoba,...
In November 2009, Squire Sanders filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases for AmTrust Financial Corporation (now known as AmFin Financial Corporation) and five subsidiaries in Cleveland. AmTrust Financial was the holding company for AmTrust Bank, which was ...
Squire Sanders negotiated a highly complex settlement providing for one of the biggest brownfield cleanups in New York State history. Since 1999, our client, a US steelmaker, had been defending various environmental counterclaims asserted by th...
In what was described at the time as the largest not-for-profit bankruptcy case in the annals of US Chapter 11, our client needed to resolve the claims of nearly 15,000 investors and holders of US$700 million in debt securities to get its Chapter 11 ...