Services Bankruptcy & Business Reorganization

Kean Miller guides creditors, debtors, and other interested parties through every phase of bankruptcy and related litigation. We have deep industry acumen in sectors as diverse as energy, manufacturing, healthcare, financial services, retail, restaurants, and construction. Our lawyers have acted as counsel to debtors-in-possession, bankruptcy trustees, creditors’ committees, liquidating agents, lenders, asset purchasers, and a variety of creditors and other interested parties in reorganization and liquidation proceedings in our home states of Louisiana and Texas as well as Delaware, New York, Colorado, and other venues across the country.

Kean Miller guides creditors through corporate reorganizations and complicated restructurings and receiverships. We overcome difficult challenges for creditors at the local, regional, and national levels and advocate their rights in bankruptcy court and insolvency proceedings. We routinely handle Chapter 11 proceedings, bankruptcy litigation, exit financing, and Section 363 sales, asset purchases, preference actions, contested claims objections, contract disputes, fraudulent transfers, distressed workouts, collateral reviews, and opinion letters.

Secured Creditor Representation

• Regularly represent banks, finance companies, private equity-backed lenders, and other alternative lenders through workout, forbearance agreements, litigation with, and bankruptcy filings by borrowers and their sponsors. We focus on cost-effective resolution of the client’s goals for the engagement, usually including aggressive enforcement of the client’s rights and collateral.  We have recently worked with our clients in the following industries: energy, health care, manufacturing, retail, information technology, commercial and industrial real estate, cryptocurrency, multi-family real estate, and construction.
• Enforcement of lien rights against debtors on behalf of contractors, suppliers, and other statutory-lien-right holders.
• Statewide bankruptcy counsel of commercial vehicle finance companies.
• Negotiate and litigate stay-relief and adequate protection payments for the benefit of secured creditor clients.
• Advise banks on developing strategies acceptable to regulators for resolving troubled credits.
• Enforcing guarantees against non-bankrupt sponsors and other guarantors of a debtor in bankruptcy.

Debtor Representation

• Advise financially troubled companies, in and out of bankruptcy, about how to efficiently and quickly reorganize to maximize their business goals.
• Represent regional trucking companies in recent chapter 11 cases in the Southern District of Texas.
• Represent an industrial gas supplier in a recent chapter 11 case in the Western District of Texas.
• Advise national energy company in connection with a chapter 7 bankruptcy case for a non-operating subsidiary to manage its legacy liabilities.
• Advise and counsel multiple companies in connection with debt workouts and reorganizations outside of the formal bankruptcy process, including the benefits available to small business debtors under Subchapter V of the Bankruptcy Code.

Asset Buyers – Section 363 Sales

• Regularly represent buyers and lienholders in connection with Section 363 bankruptcy sales of distressed assets. Recent representations have included the purchase and sale of offshore energy assets, specialized recycling facility for the petrochemical industry, multifamily real estate, commercial and industrial real estate, and LLC interests.
• Enforcing secured creditors’ rights to credit bid in bankruptcy sales.
• Representing tenants to enforce their right to remain after a Section 363 sale.

Trade Creditors, Other Unsecured Creditors, and Other Parties in Interest

• Represent critical vendors in connection with negotiating early payment of their outstanding invoices due from the debtor entity.
• Advise vendor, suppliers, and others in connection with negotiations over the assumption or rejection of their contracts in a debtor’s bankruptcy case and ensure that our clients obtain “adequate assurance” when an assumed contract is assigned to a buyer.
• Asserting “administrative expense” claims on behalf of clients who continue to do business with a debtor after it files for bankruptcy.
• Advise charterer of an FPSO in connection with the bankruptcy cases filed by the vessel owner and its affiliates.
• Represent landlords and property managers in connection with bankruptcy cases filed by lessees and vendors.

Bankruptcy Litigation

• Defend creditors and other parties in interest against demands and lawsuits seeking payment and recovery of alleged preferential payments (preferences) and/or fraudulent transfers.
• Enforce contractual rights to defense and indemnity for major energy company in bankruptcy litigation and parallel state-court litigation.
• Enforcement of a governmental entity’s health-and-safety standards in the bankruptcy case of a contractor.
• Defend buyers of industrial assets from asbestos-related claims and other tort claims discharged in their seller’s bankruptcy case, including removal of state-court tort litigation to federal court and obtaining preliminary injunctions to bar personal-injury plaintiffs from continuing to prosecute their alleged claims against our clients.
• Prosecuting and defending litigation over the dischargeability of debt and obtaining an order of no discharge.
• Special counsel to Chapter 7 Trustee in complex avoidance actions and fraud-related litigation.
• Initiated involuntary bankruptcy cases for recalcitrant borrowers and guarantors on behalf of creditors.
• Litigation of attorneys’ fees for bad-faith filing of a bankruptcy case.

Committee Representation

• Co-Counsel for the Unsecured Creditors Committee in bankruptcy cases for rural hospitals.
• Counsel to members of the Unsecured Creditors Committee in a diverse range of cases, including oil and gas-related companies, an international manufacturing company, and a hospitality/restaurant company.
• Representation of Ad Hoc Group of Dealers in the bankruptcy liquidation of a national retailer.
• Representation of Ad Hoc Group of Convenience Store Operators in the bankruptcy case of a national convenience store owner and supplier.
• Representation of Ad Hoc Group of Bondholders in the bankruptcy case of a skilled-nursing facility.