Restructuring Team of the Year
This award recognises teams that have played a critical role on the most complex restructuring mandates of the year. In choosing the winners in this category, judges will be looking for clear examples of innovation and where the lawyers have achieved crucial outcomes for their clients.
2019 Winner
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
Ken Baird, Richard Tett
Advising Carillion on its liquidation following allegations of accounting irregularities and cash flow issues. Freshfields’ role required delivering timely and practical advice to anticipate and deal with the unique challenges of a trading liquidation and to manage the risks and liabilities for the Carillion estate and the officeholders.
Shortlisted
Kirkland & Ellis - HIGHLY COMMENDED
Kon Asimacopoulos, Kate Stephenson
Advising Noble Group on its highly complex cross-border restructuring. This deal required parallel English and Bermuda schemes of arrangement and applications for recognition of the schemes in the US, via Chapter 15 of the US Bankruptcy Code.
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld
Neil Devaney, Barry Russell
Advising the ad hoc group of senior creditors on the $3.5bn financial restructuring of global commodities trader Noble Group, a Bermuda-incorporated company listed in the Singapore stock exchange, which had to have its centre of main interests switched from Hong Kong to London to enable the deal.
Ashurst
Giles Boothman, Nigel Ward
Advising Interserve on its restructuring prior to entering into administration after debt ballooned from £274m to £513m in a year. The complex work-out was done with the administration of Carillion in the background, so there was plenty of public interest.
DLA Piper
Mark Jackson
Advising Conviviality on the sale of its wholesale business to C&C Group, saving 2,000 jobs, as well as the sale of its retail business to Bestway, saving 1,700 jobs. This followed the company’s failure to consider a £30m HMRC payment, after which DLA Piper was instructed to provide urgent restructuring advice.
Paul Hastings
David Ereira
Advising New Look and its owner, Brait, on its successful company voluntary arrangement. A CVA was designed to reduce the risk of a future insolvency – a threat that looked likely given the 600 store leasehold liabilities were unaffordable – and convincing the landlords to accept a CVA was a herculean task.
Weil, Gotshal & Manges
Andrew Wilkinson, Alex Wood
Advising Westinghouse Group on the global implementation of its financial restructuring and its $4.6bn sale to Brookfield from Toshiba through a joint US Chapter 11 plan and sale process. The London team led on the multi-jurisdictional aspects that rendered all non-US entities solvent on the closing of the sale.