Debtor-Creditor Rights and Bankruptcy

Our Debtor-Creditor Rights and Bankruptcy Group attorneys help clients manage risk and seize opportunities in a financial crisis.

Our attorneys emphasize creative, practical approaches to achieve our clients’ objectives in a timely, cost-effective manner. Our core group of attorneys draws upon the expertise of specialists in other practice areas as needed, including banking, pension benefits, litigation, environmental, tax, and real estate.

We have a comprehensive practice in the areas of bankruptcy, reorganization, workouts, and debtor-creditor rights. Because we represent many financial institutions, we regularly represent the interests of lenders in workouts, bankruptcies and troubled credit situations in all industries, using our experience to help preserve collateral value and maximize realization. Our attorneys also assist creditors and creditors’ committees, trustees, purchasers of assets and lessors of real and personal property.  We also assist business clients with financial restructurings and other debtor-creditor issues.

Our Services:

Our Group provides the following services:

• Advising lenders in loan workouts and restructurings
• Advising lenders on lender liability matters
• Representing manufacturing companies, especially in the automotive industry, in dealings with troubled suppliers
• Counseling clients in all aspects of bankruptcy reorganizations, liquidations and related litigation
• Counseling financially troubled companies
• Advising purchasers of troubled companies, including purchasers of assets in bankruptcy sales
• Representing clients in creditor compositions, assignments for the benefit of creditors, receivership, and bankruptcy proceedings
• Defending clients in bankruptcy preference, fraudulent transfer, lender liability, and other litigation

Representative Matters:

We have represented lenders in numerous bankruptcies and troubled credit situations, including the Chapter 11 bankruptcies of Schwinn/GT Corp., Ha-Lo Industries, Inc., Oxford Automotive, Inc., PPI Holdings, Inc. (Precision Parts International), Plastech Engineered Products, Inc., ASC Incorporated, Pharmed Group Holdings, Inc., SKD Company, Limited Partnership, Uni-Marts, LLC, Pro Golf of America, Inc., Uni Boring Co., Inc., Buffalo Molded Plastics, Inc. d/b/a Andover Industries, DCT, Inc., Channel Master, LLC, Air Transport International, L.L.C., and Chivas Products Limited.

We have represented creditors, suppliers, and other parties in interest in major automotive supplier cases, including the Chapter 11 bankruptcies of Delphi Corporation, Dana Corporation, Dura Automotive Systems, Inc., Collins & Aikman Corporation, Blue Water Automotive Systems, Inc., BHM Technologies Holdings, Inc., and Tower Automotive, Inc.

Our firm represented the conservator and debtor in possession, and later the liquidating agent, of MCA Financial Corp., RIMCO Financial Corp., their subsidiaries, and certain affiliates, a mortgage lending/servicing operation with hundreds of millions of dollars in assets and debts. Our work resulted in confirmation of a Chapter 11 plan.

We counseled the operating trustee in the successful reorganization of Fred Sanders, Inc., a 112-year-old Detroit specialty company.

We represented the Commissioner of Insurance for the State of Michigan as Rehabilitator in the matter of Confederation Life Insurance Company, the largest rehabilitation of an alien insurer in U.S. history.

We counseled a major commercial bank as issuer of over $100 million of letters of credit in the rehabilitation proceedings of Legion Insurance Company and Villanova Insurance Company in Pennsylvania.

We represented a bank in the bankruptcy case of Pharmed Group Holdings, Inc., a Florida-based pharmaceutical company, in which the bank’s loans, in excess of $20 million, were paid in full.

We have handled numerous multi-million dollar commercial and residential real estate workouts, foreclosures, receiverships, deeds in lieu of foreclosure and post-foreclosure sales, including:

• Foreclosure of a 204-unit multifamily project in Novi, Michigan
• Foreclosure of a 50-bed senior care/assisted living facility in Plymouth, Michigan
• Acquisition by deed in lieu of foreclosure of a 178-unit apartment project in Detroit, Michigan
• Liquidation of multiple gas station properties throughout southeast Michigan through receiverships

We represented the senior lender to ASC Incorporated, a Tier-1 automotive supplier specializing in creative design and prototyping; the loan was paid in full and the letter of credit facility cash secured.

A team of Bodman attorneys successfully represented the agent bank in a workout involving more than $170 million of loans to four borrowing entities and six guarantors used to acquire four Florida apartment complexes for conversion to condominiums.

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