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Bankruptcy, Restructuring & Governance

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Helping troubled and financially fatigued companies navigate distressed situations and creating opportunities with businesses in distress.

Morrison Cohen has long recognized that clients need a comprehensive approach to the provision of legal services to, or around, troubled and distressed companies. A client’s interests in a distressed situation can be varied: while a company is in distress, its management, vendors, or equity see danger, others may see opportunity. Companies become distressed for a variety of reasons: general economic downturn with attendant reduction in corporate or consumer spending, new economy businesses that disrupt old economy businesses or render them noncompetitive or unnecessary, over leverage, insufficient cash flow, mistakes, mismanagement, bad leadership, inadequate governance and occasionally true corporate malfeasance. The path towards managing, or even capitalizing on, this distress often requires blending legal and business skill, and is as much an exercise in practicality as it is in scholarship.

Pure specialists or siloed attorneys who only know their specific area of the law cannot provide the type of holistic advice needed to help a company in distress. They cannot address the needs of clients who are forced to deal with distressed partners, vendors, or customers. Nor do they have the breadth of vision or experience to work with clients who see opportunities in distressed businesses.

Our Bankruptcy, Restructuring & Governance Practice employs a multidisciplinary approach and an integrated legal services platform to distressed situations with a focus on proactive, creative, commercial and value-added effective solutions and strategies. Consequently, the members of this group are lawyers who are knowledgeable, comfortable and capable advising on governance, fiduciary duties, insolvency matters, corporate and corporate finance matters, employee rights and benefits, litigation and bankruptcy. Our goal is to assist our clients in anticipating, preparing for and avoiding problems before they occur or, if the financial distress is too acute, guiding them through the myriad of issues that are attendant to the restructuring process. There is nothing about the life cycle of a company that the members of this group cannot address.

We have represented every constituent involved in a business in distress including the company, its board, special committees of the board, independent directors, creditors, investors, shareholders, management, employees and financial institutions on all levels of the capital structure and understand what is important to each of the parties. Our depth of knowledge also enables us to collaboratively develop strategies with our clients.

In addition to representing troubled companies in Chapter 11 cases throughout the country, the Bankruptcy group also has dedicated practice teams that are led by senior attorneys with decades of real-world practical experience that focus on discrete client needs.

Corporate Governance: The board and its directors are often the primary target of creditors and shareholders in a distressed situation. The Bankruptcy group provides a team of senior partners to advise boards of directors, special committees, audit committees, independent directors, chief executive officers, and other members of senior management with respect to their fiduciary duties and obligations to, or exposures in connection with, financially troubled companies or acquisition targets. We also regularly meet with management and in-house counsel to provide updates on the law and discuss best practices.

Acquisitions: A bankruptcy case often provides an efficient market for the sale of a business or its assets. Buyers benefit from the transparency of the process, judicial supervision and the ability to acquire assets free and clear of liens, claims and encumbrances. However, the process is anything but simple and requires knowledge of both the bankruptcy process, deal making and finance.

Real Estate Solutions: The firm’s large real estate practice also involves the Bankruptcy group in numerous real estate and hospitality restructurings, and bankruptcy matters across the country on behalf of real estate lenders, developers, and investors, as well as commercial landlords and tenants.

Crypto Bankruptcy: Morrison Cohen has been intimately involved in the crypto and digital assets world for many years, representing the defendants in the first case brought by the SEC’s then-newly formed Cyber Unit in 2017. Members of the Digital Assets Group have been fully integrated into the Bankruptcy, Restructuring & Governance Practice to represent major participants in virtually all of the major crypto bankruptcy cases.

Employment Solutions: The Bankruptcy group offers a suite of services for distressed companies – including stand-alone and portfolio companies – to address the liability of officers and directors for employee-related claims and the duties owed by those controlling the organization to employees, critical employment and benefit plan issues, the interplay of various federal and state enforcement and employee protection regimes within the bankruptcy code, and the structuring of retention and incentive plans.

Cross-Border Solutions: Because of the firm’s global practice, the Bankruptcy group represents companies, creditors and liquidators in cutting edge cross-border insolvency matters including implications of cross-border transactions and litigations. 

Distressed, troubled and financially fatigued companies need guidance from more than just individual specialists, they need an integrated approach to complex problems that cross legal disciplines and traditional firm practice areas. The Bankruptcy, Restructuring & Governance Practice offers our clients a different and, we believe, better way of navigating through a company’s troubles or creating and facilitating opportunities with companies in distress.

Experience

General Representations

  • Counsel debtors, committees, creditors, shareholders, trustees and financial institutions on all levels of the capital structure in all transactional and litigation aspects of bankruptcy cases, prenegotiated and prepackaged Chapter 11 cases, Subchapter V cases, Section 363 sales, out-of-court restructurings, workouts and buyouts in jurisdictions throughout the United States.
  • Counsel in senior loan facilities, debtor-in-possession financings, second lien financings and mezzanine debt loans on both the lender and company side.
  • Counsel lenders, landlords, developers and investors in connection with numerous real estate related restructurings of commercial office towers, hotels, shopping centers, commercial and residential property portfolios and mixed use developments.
  • Advise boards of directors, special committees, audit committees, independent directors, chief executive officers and other members of senior management for public and private corporations, investment houses, banks, private equity funds, partnerships and other entities with respect to their fiduciary duties and obligations to, or exposures in connection with, financially troubled companies or acquisition targets.
  • Counsel providers of fairness and solvency opinions in connection with retentions, scope of engagements, delivery of opinions and board presentations and, in applicable situations, securities filings.
  • Counsel buyers and sellers of financially distressed assets and providing strategic counseling on business opportunities, the bankruptcy implications of transactions, and transaction or enterprise structuring and financing

Representative Matters

  • Quadrum Development Corp. in its $95 million purchase of Brooklyn’s Williamsburg Hotel at bankruptcy auction.
  • Daol Rexmark, a New York-based lender acting as U.S. agent for Korea-based Kookmin Bank in UCC foreclosure against borrower Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp., regarding ownership of Washington D.C.’s Union Station. Rexmark was granted a preliminary injunction and declared temporary rightful owner of Union Station in the Southern District of New York.
  • Guild Investment Group LLC (nka Guild Ventures LLC) in its successful purchase of lender debt and litigation to allow foreclosure of multi-million dollar property in Albany, NY.
  • Be-Aviv 286 Rider LLC, an affiliate of a private equity firm, in its successful recovery of 100% of its multi-million dollar loan including all principal, interest, default rate interest, and attorney’s fees in the Southern District of New York Bankruptcy Court. In this case, the lender exercised its rights under a pledge to vote and control its borrower and retained an independent manager to manage the borrower who commenced a Chapter 11 case. The lender also provided DIP Financing, which was repaid in full.
  • Affiliate of Quadrum Global, a private equity firm, in its successful confirmation of a creditor’s Chapter 11 plan in the Vernon 4540 Realty, LLC bankruptcy in the Southern District of New York. Quadrum funded the plan of reorganization that paid all creditor claims in full in exchange for the acquisition of all of the assets of the debtor. The case was focused on the recovery by the estate of Brownfield Tax Credits.
  • Global Automotive Systems, LLC, a leading manufacturer and of complex metal assemblies and products, in its contested sale to Advanced Vehicle Assemblies, an affiliate financier Lynn Tilton.
  • U.S. subsidiaries of Geox, a leading fashion retailer, in their successful reorganizations of under Subchapter V of the Bankruptcy Code.
  • Furla (U.S.A.) Inc., a leading brand in the premium leather goods market, in the successful reorganization of its U.S. business under Subchapter V of the Bankruptcy Code.
  • Churchill Real Estate Holdings LLC in multiple bankruptcy cases.
  • Landlord in the Corinthian bankruptcy filed under Subchapter V of the Bankruptcy Code, in its successful recovery of a substantial portion of its pre- and postpetition arrears.
  • Ad Hoc Committee of Consignment Vendors and apparel and jewelry consignors in Neiman Marcus and Sears bankruptcies. Successfully protected consignor rights.
  • Allure Gems LLC, a significant administrative claim holder and consignment creditor in Sears/Kmart bankruptcy.
  • Production Resource Group (PRG), the world’s leading provider of entertainment and event technology solutions, in connection with its billion dollar acquisition of competitor VER, as part of VER’s pre-negotiated Chapter 11.
  • The Independent Directors of Residential Capital, LLC, formally a leading originator of residential mortgage loans and, together with their non-Debtor affiliates, the fifth largest servicer of residential mortgage loans in the United States both prior to and during Recap’s Chapter 11 case.
  • DIP Lender in ESML Holdings, Inc., a company developing a fully integrated, 7 million tonnes per annum capacity iron ore pellet production facility.
  • Phoenix Brands, LLC, a nationally recognized laundry and fabric care company, as Debtor-in-Possession in its successful Chapter 11 bankruptcy case.
  • Selected as Liquidating Trustee of Phoenix Brands Liquidating Trust.
  • DIP Lender in the Lafayette Yards, a hotel and conference center, Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
  • Littlejohn Capital, LLC in connection with its acquisition out of bankruptcy of ArmorWorks Enterprises, LLC, a developer and provider of vehicle and aircraft armor systems, body armor, and other protection products and systems to the aerospace and defense markets.
  • Mynd Spa & Salon, Inc., fka Red Door Salons, Inc., fdba Elizabeth Arden Resort Spas, Inc. as Chapter 7 debtors.
  • The producers of a major Broadway production, as outside general counsel, and in numerous transactions, including a restructuring, debt and equity financings, and ongoing production matters.
  • Investors in the Madoff Ponzi Scheme.
  • Former employees in the Lehman Brothers and MF Global Chapter 11 cases.
  • Counsel to indenture trustees in General Growth, Primus Telecommunications, NRG Energy and HealthSouth Chapter 11 cases.
  • Wellpoint and its subsidiary, Empire HealthChoice Assurance, Inc., d/b/a Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield in the Chapter 11 cases of Chemtura, Delphi, Circuit City, Steve & Barry’s, American Home Mortgages, St. Vincent’s, Episcopal Health, Magellan Healthcare, St. Francis’ Hospital, Long Beach Medical Center and others.
  • Retail tenants, including Liz Claiborne, American Girl and Lucky Brand Jeans in the General Growth Chapter 11.
  • Ventilex BV as secured lender, DIP lender, and ultimate acquirer of Ventilex Inc. in Chapter 11.
  • Praesidian Capital as secured lender, DIP lender and ultimate acquirer of Club Ventures – David Barton Gyms in Chapter 11.
  • AEA Investors in connection with numerous mezzanine and first lien loans and restructurings.
  • Equity Security Holders’ Committee in the Point Blank Solutions Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
  • Wilmington Trust as Indenture Trustee in NRG Energy Chapter 11 case and with respect to HealthSouth.
  • CIFC as secured lender in the Eateries, Black Diamond Mining, Buffets, JHT and LandSource Chapter 11 cases.
  • Littlejohn Fund II as secured lender, DIP lender, and ultimate acquirer of PSC Scanning in Chapter 11, a developer and manufacturer of bar code based scanning devices.
  • Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan in the bankruptcies of General Motors and Chrysler.
  • Western World Insurance in the Twinlab and Delaco bankruptcy cases.
  • Vanco Direct in its 363 acquisition of Universal Access Global Holdings, Inc., providers of regulated telecommunications services.
  • Universal Lighting in its 363 acquisition of Energy Savings, Inc., a manufacturer of lighting products.
  • Chair of the Creditors Committees in Bayou and Silicon Graphics Chapter 11 cases.
  • Bondholders in the Kaiser Aluminum Chapter 11 case.
  • Financial institutions, property owners or creditors in the Chapter 11 cases of Adelphia, Enron, and Worldcom.
  • Elected Chapter 7 trustee of Hall Dickler, LLP.

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