LATAM Airlines Group’s landmark cross-border debt restructuring has won the American Bankruptcy Institute’s (ABI) first annual International Matter of the Year Award.
The LATAM matter was selected from a field of 14 nominees as the winner of the award, which was presented at ABI’s Cross-Border Insolvency Program in New York on November 14, 2022.
Cleary represented LATAM, Latin America’s largest air carrier, and certain of its affiliates in Chile, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, the Cayman Islands, and the United States, in the company’s successful exit from restructuring on November 3, 2022 before the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.
LATAM’s Chapter 11 cases represent one of the largest bankruptcies filed in recent times, involving over $16 billion in liabilities and ultimately involving thirty-eight debtors, including LATAM’s largest passenger and cargo airline affiliates. The restructuring involved a series of heavily contested matters, including four, multi-billion-dollar trial-like hearings in 2022 alone, in each of which LATAM ultimately prevailed and obtained the approval of an innovative DIP Financing structure (that has since been adopted in several other complex restructurings), and its plan and related multi-billion dollar backstop financing arrangements. Cleary also defended confirmation of LATAM’s plan of reorganization in a series of expedited appeals.
For more information on ABI’s Cross-Border Insolvency Program and the International Matter of the Year Award, click here.