Bankruptcy and Restructuring

Restructuring may decide ownership. Whether an enterprise survives intact, who controls it on the other side, which claimants recover and which absorb the loss are questions often settled on a compressed schedule, in hearings measured in days, on a record assembled before many parties recognize that a fight has begun. Recoveries swing by hundreds of millions on a single confirmation ruling. A secured position negotiated years earlier can be primed, subordinated or valued into irrelevance in a morning. Transactions closed long before any petition can be reached back and unwound by an estate hunting for value. Clients retain Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors when a restructuring turns adversarial and the consequences are lasting.

The Firm represents debtors, secured lenders, unsecured creditors, official committees, distressed funds and buyers of estate assets, at every level, from the bankruptcy courts through the courts of appeals. What those clients want can vary: control of the plan that will govern the enterprise, a lien or a claim protected at its full value, transferred value recovered for the estate, a plan defeated because it undervalues their position, a sale process pried open before it delivers the company to an insider at a discount. It can benefit clients to engage a law firm early, because the record that decides a restructuring closes fast and the advantage belongs to the party that arrived prepared. The Firm approaches each matter prepared to take it through trial and appeal when necessary to achieve the client’s objectives.

Restructuring litigation rewards resources many parties cannot assemble once a case is moving. Brewer keeps those resources on staff. The firm’s Consulting Group reconstructs solvency, value collateral and test the assumptions a plan's feasibility rests on. Former federal agents and intelligence professionals trace the transfers and insider dealings that avoidance claims are built from. Communications professionals stand with clients in proceedings where every filing is public and closely read.