Alan Stone is a partner in the New York office of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy and Practice Group Leader of the firm’s Litigation & Arbitration Group.
Mr. Stone’s practice focuses on corporate and business litigation, and more specifically on cases involving complex business valuation disputes. He also works on non-litigation matters that involve a variety of corporate governance and Delaware law issues, including advising corporate boards of directors and special committees with respect to transactional and litigation issues.
A prominent figure in the Delaware legal community for more than 20 years, Mr. Stone has tried fraudulent transfer cases, as well as a variety of restructuring related cases. He also has represented directors, officers and corporate entities in actions challenging their exercise of fiduciary duties in the context of mergers, going private transactions and other transactions involving controlling or majority stockholders, as well as in derivative litigation. Representing clients across a broad range of industries, Mr. Stone has led more than thirty first-chair trials and major matters over the past ten years.
Among the notable matters that Mr. Stone has handled are:
- 3V Capital Master Fund Ltd., et al. v. Official Comm. of Unsecured Creditors of TOUSA, Inc., et al. (In re TOUSA, Inc.), in which Milbank defended a group of lenders against unprecedented fraudulent transfer claims aimed at recouping more than $400 million that they were repaid on a valid debt. Key issues in the case involved the solvency of TOUSA, Inc. and its many subsidiaries at the time of the repayment and the value of the benefits the subsidiaries received in granting liens to secure the repayment. After a thirteen-day bench trial, the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida ruled against the lenders. On appeal, Milbank secured an order from the district court quashing the bankruptcy court’s findings.
- In re John Q. Hammons Hotels, in which Milbank defended the acquirer of a hotel company in a shareholder suit seeking damages for the allegedly unfair price paid for the company. The suit turned on the value of the company at the time of the acquisition, implicating a number of complex valuation issues relating to the future value of the company. Following a trial in the Delaware Court of Chancery, the court ruled in favor of the defendants, finding that the price paid for the company was “entirely fair.”
- ASARCO LLC v. Americas Mining Corp., in which Milbank defended against fraudulent transfer and various other claims stemming from the debtor’s sale of a controlling interest in a subsidiary company. Key issues in the case involved the solvency of the debtor at the time of the transfer, as well as the value of the shares in the subsidiary company at the time of the transfer and the value of the consideration that the debtor received in exchange for the shares. Despite finding that the shares were transferred with the intent to defraud creditors, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas found that the debtor received reasonably equivalent value for the shares.
Mr. Stone received his B.S.E. in biomedical engineering from Tulane University and his law degree, magna cum laude, from Tulane Law School where he was a senior notes and comments editor of the Tulane Law Review.
Mr. Stone clerked for the Honorable Andrew G.T. Moore II of the Delaware Supreme Court from 1986-1987.