Corporate Restructuring and Insolvency
About the Group
The Corporate Restructuring and Insolvency Group comprises some of Ireland's leading lawyers in the corporate recovery and insolvency field. The group is led by partners Rod Ensor and Tony O'Grady and provides specialist advice on all contentious and non-contentious corporate restructuring and insolvency matters. The group is cross-departmental in nature, comprising lawyers with extensive experience in corporate restructuring and insolvency, including the property, banking, tax and corporate aspects.
The group comprises nine lawyers made up of 3 partners, 3 associates and 3 assistant solicitors, which makes it the largest of its kind in any of the top five law firms. The group has more than doubled in size in the last few years. It has strong links with PWC, KPMG, Ernst & Young, Deloitte, Grant Thornton, BDO Simpson Xavier and FGS, as well as with ACC Bank plc, National Irish Bank and Bank of Scotland (Ireland), which ensures that it has been well placed to deal with many of the most significant domestic and cross-border insolvency matters in recent years.
The group has advised in many recent examinerships, including Cappoquin Chickens, Golden Discs, Douglas Wallace architects, and Gallium trading as First Equity. Significant instructions in recent years which have contributed significantly to the strength and depth of the group include advising the official liquidator of Eurofood (the Irish subsidiary of the Parmalat Group) in relation to its landmark reference to the European Court of Justice for an interpretation of the European Insolvency Regulation, and advising in relation to SIV receiverships of Cheyne Finance plc and Rhinebridge, as well as advising in the examinerships of SCC, ISTC and Ag Cert.
The group is currently working closely with a number of financial institutions on the restructuring and enforcement side, and in that capacity has been instructed in respect of several receiverships, and a number of commercial court cases involving both defaulting borrowers and negligence actions/actions for breach of undertaking by solicitors. In this context the group is also, in conjunction with the tax, banking and property departments, advising in relation to tax driven investment schemes (hotels, nursing homes) in respect of which the investors/operating companies are in default as a result of the current economic downturn.
The group also specialises in advising directors, officers and management of companies in financial difficulty and provides pragmatic and realistic solutions. The group assists directors in maximising a company’s asset value for its shareholders and creditors and in avoiding actions which may result in them being held personally liable for some or all of a company’s debts or other sanctions such as restriction and disqualification. The group has successfully represented directors in a number of restriction applications. A restriction order prohibits a restricted director for a period of 5 years from being appointed or acting in any way, whether directly or indirectly as a director or secretary or be concerned or take part in the promotion or formation of any company unless certain capital requirements are met.
The group in good economic times maintained a strong practice specialising full time in corporate restructuring and insolvency law work, so is well positioned in the current climate and economic downturn to work on all the large insolvency and restructuring cases.
Members of the group regularly speak at external conferences, present lectures at the Law Society of Ireland and the Dublin Solicitors Bar Association, make client representations and where requested present specific workshops tailored to a client’s individual needs.
Click here to access our Corporate Restructuring and Insolvency brochure
Representative Transactions
- advised the official liquidator of Eurofood, the Irish subsidiary of the Parmalat Group, in relation to its reference to the European Court of Justice for an interpretation of the European Insolvency Regulation
- advised in relation to Cheyne Finance plc and Rhinebridge - SIV receiverships
- advised in relation to numerous recent examinerships, including Ag-Cert, International Securities and Trading Corporation plc (ISTC), Structured Credit Company (SCC), Cappoquin Chickens, First Equity, Golden Discs, G&L Property and Douglas Wallace Architects
- advised in relation to the recent cases of rogue solicitors, Michael Lynn and Thomas Byrne
- advised on a number of major solvent restructurings and takeovers by way of Scheme of Arrangement, such as Riverdeep, International Marketing Services Group plc, the takeover by HRE of Depfa in which we advised a hedge fund, and the recent merger of IAWS Group plc and Hiestand