From our base in New York, we represent a diverse range of clients across the country and around the world.

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Disputes involving complex financial transactions can themselves be remarkably complex. With a deep understanding of these types of transactions, our attorneys represent financial institutions and other parties in litigation involving asset-based securities and structured finance transactions, both in and out of bankruptcy court.

The fallout from the financial crisis of 2009 left many in financial services with significant legal exposure and portfolios of distressed assets. Clients have turned to us to represent them in the wave of fraud, repurchase, and indemnity claims precipitated by the crisis, including claims arising from the issuance of residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) and fraudulent transfer claims arising from derivative and structured products and leveraged buyouts. Those actions continue to this day and have provided precedent for future claims by deal participants, opportunistic investors and bankruptcy trustees to recoup losses and unwind transactions in times of economic distress.

Asserting Creditors’ Rights in Any Situation

Our vast and in-depth involvement in the intricacies of structured financial products, along with our years of experience in the post-crisis litigation that followed, has provided a unique perspective on the original deal terms at the center of these disputes, making us well suited to assert our clients’ rights. We strive to enforce these rights through negotiated settlements — such as workouts and loan modifications — yet remain fully prepared to go to court. From wide-ranging fact discovery to complex expert discovery, from drafting comprehensive motions to arguing those motions in court, and from trials to appeals, clients count on us to steer them through any complicated and lengthy litigation.

Representative Experience

  • Achieved numerous victories, including multiple dismissals and favorable resolutions for one of the largest residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) sponsors in cases brought by investors and securitization trusts for fraud and repurchase, leading to the dismissal of over $1 billion in claims. These litigation victories created precedent that cut off future claims against our client and other defendants in the RMBS space and benefit ABS sponsors in all credit markets with similar deal structures.

  • Defending a European investment bank against over $600 million in exposure from an ongoing fraudulent transfer lawsuit brought by Madoff bankruptcy trustee based on derivative transactions, including total return swaps and leveraged notes. In Madoff-related litigation, achieved, with other similarly situated banks, dismissal of over $200 million state law- and foreign insolvency-based actions asserted by liquidators of largest offshore Madoff feeder fund. The litigation resolved legal exposure for the client incurred in providing its customers with desired synthetic deal structures.

  • Pursuing over $300 million in recoveries from Wells Fargo as the master servicer of securitization trust for breach of contract and failing to comply with servicing standards, through a detailed analysis and proprietary calculation of losses caused by servicing failures, including delays in foreclosure, failures to modify loans and unreasonably low-priced collateral sales, all of which contributed to the client-sponsor's legal exposure for repurchases of loans.

  • Prevailed in breach of contract claims against commercial real estate borrowers and warded off counterclaims against commercial real estate lenders in deals gone bad. Argued that borrowers were obligated to pay contractually agreed fees and client's costs and expenses, despite deals not closing, creating favorable precedent and sending a strong signal to other borrowers who might consider not paying agreed costs.

  • Saved an advertising agency from disgorgement of nearly $10 million in alleged preferential transfers prior to the filing of a threatened chapter 11 adversary proceeding against it by arguing the concept of sequential liability in addition to traditional defenses.

  • Represented a national transportation company in a bankruptcy adversary proceeding relating to whether the client had entered into a binding, enforceable agreement to sell its bankruptcy claim, despite the absence of a written agreement. At the conclusion of the trial, Bankruptcy Court ruled entirely in our client’s favor, finding that the parties had not entered into a contract and that the client retained full ownership interest in its claim against the debtor.

Key Contacts

Meet The Team