Milbank has earned top honors at The American Lawyer’s annual Global Legal Awards for its work on the groundbreaking chapter 11 restructuring of Arcapita, which took home the “Global Finance Grand Prize” at an awards ceremony on September 15. Selected from among 270 nominations, the transaction was among just four to be recognized as the year’s best cross-border legal work in finance, corporate, disputes and citizenship.
Milbank advised the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of Bahrain-based Arcapita Bank B.S.C.(c) and its affiliates in their restructuring. The reorganization, the first to involve a fully Shari’ah-compliant private equity fund, previously earned The American Lawyer’s “Global Finance Deal of the Year: Restructuring and Insolvency” award for the Middle East region. Describing the transaction, The American Lawyer noted that the restructuring “has a significance that goes far beyond simply returning value to [Arcapita’s] creditors,” and “set a number of important precedents about how US and Western courts will deal with Shari’ah contracts and disputes.”
The firm is now advising the reorganized Arcapita entities as they manage their portfolio of investments, and serves as counsel to certain of the Group’s portfolio companies in their sale processes. “We are proud of our work for Arcapita and the reorganized companies around the world and the precedents set by this complex, innovative restructuring transaction,” says Financial Restructuring partner Dennis Dunne, who led the Milbank team. “This award is a great testament to the work of our entire team, including lawyers in our New York, London, and Washington, DC offices.”
The Milbank team also included partners Evan Fleck (Financial Restructuring), Andrew Leblanc (Financial Restructuring and Litigation), Jane Morgan (Corporate), Peter Newman (Financial Restructuring), Al Pisa (Alternative Investments) and John Dewar (Islamic Finance), as well as Financial Restructuring associates Nick Kamphaus and Greta Ulvad, Corporate associates James Ebberson, Andrew Everett, Kim Shah, Aaron Stine and Munib Hussain (Islamic Finance) and Alternative Investments associates Jennifer Harris and Julia Fish.
