Restructuring, Insolvency and Bankruptcy

Nextons’ specialists have considerable experience providing advice on insolvencies and restructurings, as well as associated employment, tax, banking, intellectual property and real estate, litigation and arbitration issues.

Our lawyers provide legal support to companies in financial distress, creditors of such companies and insolvency administrators appointed to monitor and supervise the process of declaring companies insolvent.

The team advises on insolvency and reorganization of companies across a wide variety of markets and industries, including retail, IT, hospitality, life sciences, automotive, banking and finance.

Key Service Areas

We advise and assist:

• Companies in financial difficulties, including arrangements with creditors
• Investors in distressed businesses
• Banks to obtain effective security in any jurisdiction and enforce security and other rights against borrowers
• Banks to restructure loan facilities and refinance borrowers’ indebtedness
• Office holders on their duties with asset disposals, asset tracing and dispute resolution
• Creditors dealing with insolvent companies and companies with staff reduction, industrial disputes and legal issues with labor and employment
• Directors on their duties in relation to potential insolvency, as well as representing those sued for mismanagement and wrongful trading by office holders
• Other parties with all types of insolvency litigation, including recognition and enforcement of foreign insolvency judgments

Selected experience

• Geely Motors: Successfully representing the client in a more than RUB 9 billion dispute with an insolvency administrator of a major Russian car manufacturer.
• Valeo: Successfully representing the client in a number of interrelated litigations and criminal proceedings brought by a receiver to take the client’s real estate previously owned by the debtor for the bankruptcy assets and to hold client subsidiary liable for this former owner’s debts.
• A group of Lenders to AccessBank: Representing in the successful restructuring of cross-border indebtedness and recapitalization of the bank.
• Japanese manufacturer of equipment and construction machinery: Successfully representing the client in an attempt to impose subsidiary liability on it in a more than RUB 5 billion (US$70 million) bankruptcy case against a major construction equipment distributor in Russia.
• Raven Russia: Successfully defending the client in the Russian Supreme Court in its contracting party’s bankruptcy. The Supreme Court reversed the lower court judgments, refused to invalidate the client’s transaction and recover more than RUB 250 million from it.
• Global leasing company: Representing the client at the level of the cassation (third) instance court in a dispute with an insolvency administrator seeking invalidation of transactions between the debtor and the client. The decisions of the first and appellate instances, which were unfavorable for the client, were reversed and the case was sent for reconsideration to the trial court.
• Russian pharmaceutical company: Representing the client in disputes challenging transactions in a more than RUB 600 million (US$10 million) bankruptcy case against a major pharmaceutical distributor in Russia. The claims against the client were dismissed in full.

What Our Clients Say

“The firm’s insolvency and restructuring team is a technically very strong team that stays abreast of all the key developments in that field in Russia and beyond. Team members apply their deep knowledge in a very commercial way, which makes it easy for clients to work with them.”The Legal 500, 2020

“We know that they will think “outside the box” and the narrow confines of black-letter law in providing tailored and practical advice.”The Legal 500, 2020

The firm attracts attention for its ‘excellent client service’, with sources commending its ‘reliability and responsiveness’.Chambers Europe, 2019

Clients additionally report that the team is ‘knowledgeable, experienced and highly committed to the work’.Chambers Europe, 2019