The Legal Business Awards > Categories > Restructuring Team of the Year

At a glance

2019 Winner

  • Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

2019 Shortlisted

  • Kirkland & Ellis - HIGHLY COMMENDED | Kon Asimacopoulos, Kate Stephenson
  • Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld | Neil Devaney, Barry Russell
  • Ashurst | Giles Boothman, Nigel Ward
  • DLA Piper | Mark Jackson
  • Paul Hastings | David Ereira
  • Weil, Gotshal & Manges | Andrew Wilkinson, Alex Wood

Previous Years

Select a year below to download a .pdf of the previous winners and nominees.

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.