Bankruptcy and Financial Restructuring

We advise clients affected by financial distress. We provide our creditor clients with a cross-functional team of bankruptcy, tax, restructuring, finance and litigation specialists who have extensive experience on creditors’ rights issues. We provide our lender clients with the most cost-effective and practical workout solutions while zealously pursuing their fundamental business goal of achieving complete and timely repayment of loans or recovery of other assets.

Recognized throughout the United States, our Bankruptcy and Financial Restructuring Practice Group is known for its aggressive, cutting-edge solutions. By consistently looking to exceed our clients’ expectations, we have earned the reputation as one of the premier bankruptcy and restructuring practices in the country, having been recognized by groups such as Chambers & Partners and the Turnaround Management Association with its prestigious Large Transaction of the Year award.

We provide legal services across a broad scope of areas, including:

  • Traditional bankruptcy services -- representing debtors, secured and unsecured creditors, and other parties in court proceedings
  • Financial restructurings and workouts -- representing debtors and creditors in out-of-court workouts
  • Creditors’ committees -- representing both official and unofficial committees in court proceedings and workouts
  • Secured creditors’ rights -- representing creditors in collections and asset recovery
  • International insolvency -- representing foreign representatives in chapter 15 proceedings and on cross-border workouts and bankruptcies 
  • Fraud -- investigations, enforcement and collection of judgments, and attacking fraudulent conveyances

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Representative Matters

  • Represented Official Committees of Unsecured Creditors in In re Duke & King Acquisition, Inc. (Bankr. D. Minn.)

  • Represented Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors in In re Schwab Industries, Inc., et al. (Bankr. N.D. Ohio).

  • Represented Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors in In re Trinsic, Inc. (Bankr. S.D. Ala.).

  • Represented Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors in In re Giordano’s Enterprises, Inc. (Bankr. N.D. Ill.).

  • Currently representing the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of New Energy Corp., the owner and operator of a 100 million gallon ethanol plant located in South Bend, Indiana. Represented the Committee through a competitive sale and auction process for the debtor pursuant to section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code, and currently formulating a joint plan of liquidation with the debtor to maximize recoveries for general unsecured creditors.

  • Represents the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of RWJ Management Co. and its affiliated debtor entities, which own and operate ten BP-branded motor fuel and convenience store facilities in the Chicago metropolitan area with annual revenues exceeding $125,000,000 in the aggregate.  Freeborn is currently working with the debtors’ senior secured lender to file a joint plan that contemplates the creation of a trust for the benefit of unsecured creditors and the reorganization of the debtors’ business that will be owned and operated by new management.

  • Represented the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of broom purveyor Harper Brush Works and successfully facilitated the sale of Harper's operating assets to Cequent Consumer Products during the course of Harper's chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Iowa.  For more information, please see: "Freeborn Helps Facilitate Sale of Harper Brush Works Operating Assets".

  • Represented the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of Wagstaff Minnesota, Inc. and worked closely with counsel to Wagstaff to maximize the value of general unsecured claims, including asset sales, investigating the security interests of Wagstaff’s secured creditors and efforts to avoid the potentially devastating impact of certain agreements between Wagstaff and KFC.

  • Currently representing the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of PRM Family Holding Company, LLC (“PRM”), a regional grocer located in Arizona with eleven supermarkets located in four Southwestern states.  Freeborn & Peters is working with PRM to analyze and vet the numerous PACA claims filed in the case and with PRM, its lenders and other parties-in-interest in developing a sale or restructuring strategy that will maximize estate value for general unsecured creditors.

  • Represented 30 tenant-in-common investor groups in the chapter 11 cases of DBSI, Inc., formerly one of the nation’s largest sponsors of tenant-in-common investments in commercial, industrial, office and multi-family residential real estate, in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.

  • Successfully represented a large manufacturing company in true lease/disguised financing litigation in the chapter 11 case of Gateway Ethanol, L.L.C. in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Kansas.

  • Represents the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of R.T. Midwest Holdings, Inc., and assisted in the effective implementation of a sale-leaseback transaction that would allow the debtors to downsize and shed its real estate assets and secured indebtedness.  Despite the secured lender’s undersecured position, Freeborn was able to secure a meaningful distribution for general unsecured creditors.

  • Represents the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of Triad Group, Inc., and is working collectively with the debtor on strategies to address these litigation claims, maximize estate value for creditors and revive Triad’s now shuttered business operations.

  • Represented Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors in In re Arch Aluminum & Glass Co. (Bankr. S.D. Fla.).

  • Represented Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors in In re Orius Corp., et al. (Bankr. N.D. Ill.).

  • Represented chapter 7 trustee of Knight-Celotex, LLC, an $80 million building supply manufacturer, in its liquidation proceedings before the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

  • Represented participants in significant asset sales in numerous chapter 11 cases, including In re Kaiser Aluminum Corporation (Bankr. E.D. Va.); In re Quebecor World (USA) Inc. (Bankr. S.D.N.Y.); and In re Verso Technologies, Inc. (Bankr. N.D. Ga.).

  • Representing a Fortune 500 insurance company in the millions of dollars of fraudulent claims through civil RICO actions, criminal investigations and prosecutions, avoidance of fraudulent transfers, and other post judgment enforcement proceedings.

  • Serving as interim chairman of a privately held company indicted for fraud, and implementing a corporate compliance program culminating in the successful sale of the assets of the company and the acquisition by a prestigious successor company.

  • 110% recovery for individual client, piercing a complex maze of domestic and international entities managed by the target and the Ponzi scheme related thereto, utilizing TROs, Receivership, Charging Orders and covert infiltration into the target's $4MM residence.

  • Forcing the involuntary bankruptcy, liquidation, and federal criminal investigation of a major real estate developer on behalf of the near largest office property developer and management company in the US, leading to full recovery of amounts due to our client.

  • Represented home builders and commercial real estate developers in defense of foreclosure actions brought by banks seeking to obtain mortgaged property and collect on personal guaranties.

  • Defeated multiple chapter 11 “cram-down” reorganization plans proposed by commercial borrowers on behalf of secured lender clients.

  • National and Chicago-based developers in connection with the acquisition, development, construction, leasing, financing and sale of shopping centers and retail properties throughout the United States.