Restructuring

There are two partners in the restructuring team: Olivier Debeine and Jean-François Carreras. They are assisted by a team of associates with experience in restructuring and M&A..

The team provides advice at all stages of prevention and handling processes, out-of-court settlements and court proceedings, both through advice and litigation.

Our clientele is essentially made up of French mid-caps, along with court appointed agents and receivers and French and international creditors.

The M&A team works alongside the restructuring team on all aspects of equity and debt reorganisation.

Thanks to its experience and responsiveness, the team is able to provide clients with highly personalised advice that is focused on their industries. We work in French and English.

We have acted on a number of major matters and are regularly called on to advise on complex or international restructuring.

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Recent Interventions

• We are representing the Central Works Council of Distribution Casino France in its accelerated safeguard proceedings. Distribution Casino France employs 18,000 people.
• We act on behalf of a liquidator in arbitration proceedings administered by the ICDR seeking EUR 10 m damages against a US. Group (ongoing).
• We defended a group employing over 2,000 people in France, with sales of €334m in 2021, against the Public Prosecutor’s Office’s request to open receivership or liquidation proceedings (2022).
• We advised a group on the refinancing of its continuation plan debt and its LBO. The debtor raised €17 million in equity, senior debt and mezzanine debt. We structured the legal process for exiting its plan, drafted the documentation for the sale of its stake by the former majority shareholder and for the issue, and co-drafted the debt documentation and the new shareholder agreement. Two funds took minority stakes (2022).
• We acted as expert witnesses for a French company before the Supreme Court of the State of New York. The party on whose behalf we intervened was defending against a contractual liability claim of 8.5 million euros from the New-York State Thruway Authority (“NYSTA”). As an expert in French insolvency law, we submitted a written statement to the Court and were cross-examined by the plaintiff’s counsel on a question of French insolvency law (2022).
• We represented a major customer group of a logistics company in receivership, exposed to losses of tens of millions of euros in the event of service disruption. We encouraged the presentation of a joint offer to take over certain strategic activities of the debtor. The success of this disposal plan ensured the continuity of our client’s services (2022).
• We represent a major telecommunications group, protecting its rights as co-contractor and strategic creditor in the insolvency proceedings of a supplier and its subsidiary. The claims declared by our client amount to around 30 million euros (in progress for several years).
• We represented several debtors in amicably amending their bank loans as part of conciliation procedures (2022).
• We represented a major group in connection with the termination of its agreements with a partner in difficulty, through amicable and then legal proceedings (2022).

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