Business Restructuring + Insolvency

Morrison & Foerster’s Business Restructuring & Insolvency Group has a truly diverse practice and a record of accomplishment in some of the most significant bankruptcy matters of recent years. We are counsel to debtors, creditors’ committees, ad hoc committees, secured lenders, and other participants in the distressed markets. We handle financial institution restructurings, cross-border insolvencies, distressed real estate matters, insolvencies involving key intellectual property, and hedge fund failures, among other things. Some notable representations include:

• Official committee of unsecured creditors in the chapter 11 cases of Texas power company Energy Future Holdings Corp. and its affiliates. This is the 10th largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, with the debtors holding approximately $40 billion in debt.


• Official committees of unsecured creditors in the chapter 11 cases of Peabody Energy, Patriot Coal, and Walter Energy.


• Residential Capital, LLC, one of the largest real estate finance companies in the world, as the debtor in the largest chapter 11 case filed in 2012. ResCap was the first financial services company to successfully continue its regulated business operations in bankruptcy and be sold as a going concern.


• Chapter 11 trustee for MF Global in the largest chapter 11 case filed in 2011, where we helped settle more than $3 billion of claims against affiliates which will lead to a substantial recovery for unsecured creditors and eliminate a massive $1.6 billion shortfall in customer accounts.


• Two of the largest banks in Iceland through the Icelandic fiscal crisis on issues related to securities matters, restructuring of assets, cross-border conflicts of law, and litigation matters, as well as providing advice related to the global settlement of claims. As part of this process, we were instrumental in rewriting Iceland’s insolvency law.


• Amalgamated Bank, successfully, in the U.S. Supreme Court’s much-anticipated ruling in RadLAX Gateway Hotel, LLC v. Amalgamated Bank in favor of a secured creditor’s right to credit bid at an auction sale of its collateral in the bankruptcy context.

We also have an experienced, full-service debt trading team that represents banks, asset managers, hedge funds, and other market participants in every type of debt trading transaction, including par and distressed loan trades, restructured equity transactions, trade claims trades, derivatives transfers, loan securitizations, and portfolio transfers, and that has provided related regulatory and strategic counsel.

Our work has not gone unnoticed. We are recognized as a leading bankruptcy group by Chambers USA and Legal 500 US. We were also named “Bankruptcy Firm of the Year” for 2013 by Chambers USA and “Bankruptcy Group of the Year” for 2012 by Law360.