Bankruptcy & Corporate Reorganization

The new financial landscape presents legal challenges unrivaled in scope and complexity to businesses in every industry. Paul, Weiss helps companies, creditors and investors facing rapid market and regulatory transformation respond to these challenges with comprehensive and innovative bankruptcy and reorganization strategies. As a result, we have played key roles in many of the major cases that have grabbed the headlines over the past several years.

Diversity of experience and seamless delivery of multidisciplinary services are the foundations of Paul, Weiss’s restructuring practice.

We possess a thorough knowledge of every aspect of bankruptcy law, coupled with perspectives earned from representing every type of client. Our domestic and cross-border representations include debtors, official and unofficial committees of creditors and shareholders, secured and unsecured creditors and equity sponsors in chapter 11 cases, corporate reorganizations and workouts, non-bankruptcy insolvency proceedings and litigations and transactions involving financially distressed companies. We also represent purchasers of the assets, debt and securities of distressed companies.

The rapidly changing economic environment also demands breadth of expertise – our Bankruptcy Department fields large, multidisciplinary teams that leverage the resources of our firm as a whole. By drawing on the expertise of our Corporate, Tax, Litigation, Employee Benefits, Real Estate and Environmental Departments, we are able to tailor our efforts to the specific business challenges that our clients face.

Paul, Weiss has represented numerous official and unofficial creditors’ committees in some of the largest reorganizations and out-of-court workouts, including:

• the ad hoc committee of bondholders of General Motors Co. in connection with GM’s historic chapter 11 case
• the ad hoc committee of bondholders of GMAC in a $28.5 billion debt-exchange offer
• an unofficial noteholder committee of Charter Communications in a successful prearranged chapter 11 case, permitting the fourth largest cable television operator to emerge from chapter 11 with $8 billion less debt on its balance sheet and $2.5 billion of capital newly invested by our clients
• bondholders of CIT Group Inc. in negotiating a pre-packaged reorganization plan to provide $4.5 billion in chapter 11 financing and restructure approximately $33 billion in debt
• the ad hoc committee of bondholders of Quebecor, a multi-national printing company
• an ad hoc committee of bank counterparties holding multibillion-dollar financial guaranty claims against a monoline insurer
• the unofficial committee of second-lien debtholders in the chapter 11 case of Calpine Corporation
• the official creditors committee of Tronox Inc., the world’s third-largest producer and marketer of titanium dioxide pigment

Other significant representations include:

• Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company in an out-of-court restructuring of $7 billion of debt and a related rights offering
• AbitibiBowater Inc. and its affiliates, as lead U.S. bankruptcy counsel in connection with the company’s U.S. and Canadian bankruptcy filings involving the restructuring of over $8 billion of pre-petition indebtedness
• Citigroup on a wide range of matters prior to and throughout the financial crisis, including Lehman Brothers, the government bailout of Chrysler and the Troubled Assets Relief Program, and previously in all phases of the Enron, WorldCom and Parmalat cases
• Ericsson in its purchase under section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code of Nortel Networks’ North American CDMA and LTE businesses for $1.1 billion and Nortel Networks’ GSM business for $103 million
• Samsonite Corporation, as its U.S. counsel, in connection with Samsonite’s worldwide restructuring including Samsonite Company Stores’ successful prepackaged chapter 11 case
• Serving as U.S. counsel to a multi-national shipping company with worldwide operations in its successful out-of-court debt restructuring
• a New York State regulatory body in the chapter 11 case of the New York Racing Association, operator of the Saratoga, Belmont and Aqueduct racetracks
• Time Warner in its $17.6 billion acquisition, together with Comcast, of the assets of Adelphia Communications, a chapter 11 debtor

Clients also rely on Paul, Weiss to provide advice in connection with complex structured financings and investments. These clients include Major League Baseball, Silver Point Finance and others. We regularly advise financial institutions, investment banks, investors and funds including Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Apollo Management, Oaktree, Oak Hill, Angelo Gordon, Capital Research and Management and Värde Partners on existing or planned investments.

The Bankruptcy Department boasts two “Dealmakers of the Year”, as awarded by American Lawyer magazine. Andrew Rosenberg was named a dealmaker in 2010 for his work on the CIT reorganization. Department Chair Alan W. Kornberg was named a dealmaker in 2003 for his work on the PG&E chapter 11 case. The Department includes nine partners, two counsel and 19 associates who concentrate exclusively on bankruptcy and restructuring matters.