FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Reorganization Plan Touted as Most Successful Bankruptcy Case and Largest Environmental Bankruptcy in US History
NEW YORK, December 10, 2009 – In what the Department of Justice has declared to be the largest environmental bankruptcy in US history, the international law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP represented Grupo México S.A.B. de C.V. and its subsidiary American Mining Corporation (AMC) in securing a $1.5 billion financing to consummate its plan of reorganization for its US copper unit, ASARCO LLC. The consummation of this plan brings ASARCO out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, free of significant environmental and asbestos liabilities, and reunites it with its parent company. ASARCO’s emergence from bankruptcy also brings an end to more than four years of heavily litigated bankruptcy proceedings. In addition to securing the $1.5 billion loan, Milbank represented Grupo México/AMC in securing a $280 million credit facility, which will go to asbestos claimants, and in the transfer of numerous real estate and other assets into several environmental and other trusts.
Milbank represented Grupo México throughout its bankruptcy litigation as it fought to overcome a rival bid for ASARCO by India's Sterlite Industries Ltd., an Indian subsidiary of London-based metals and mining group Vedanta Resources PLC. The Bankruptcy Court commented that consummation of Grupo's plan paying creditors in full will constitute the most successful case in bankruptcy history.
The Milbank attorneys involved in the Grupo México/ASARCO bankruptcy litigation, restructuring and subsequent financing include: Corporate partner Michael L. Fitzgerald, Financial Restructuring partner Robert Jay Moore, Finance partner Blair Tyson, Corporate partner David J. Wolfson, Litigation partner Gregory Evans, Environmental partner Lewis Putman, Financial Restructuring associates Irene Bogdashevsky and Fred Neufeld, Finance associates Linda Robinson and Alecia Chen and Real Estate associate Erika Kuver DelDuca.
About Milbank
Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP is a preeminent global law firm that for more than 140 years has provided innovative legal solutions to many of the world’s largest, most complex, “first-ever” corporate transactions and litigation. The firm’s transactional expertise includes capital markets, corporate finance and transactions, project finance, acquisition finance, and other major fields of law practice. Milbank litigation teams resolve disputes involving mergers and acquisitions, proxy battles, financings and securities offerings, intellectual property, white-collar crime, and corporate restructurings, among others. The firm’s clients range from prominent multinational financial, industrial and commercial enterprises to governments, institutions and individuals. The firm is headquartered in New York, with offices in Los Angeles, Washington, DC, London, Frankfurt, Munich, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore and Beijing.
