The Honourable Sir Gavin Lightman

After obtaining a LLB ( first class)at University College London and a LLM at the University of Michigan,Sir Gavin began practice at the Bar and in 1980 took silk.He had a very large litigation practice both in the U.K. and abroad,and in particular in Singapore,Hong Kong,the West Indies and Bermuda.In 1994 he was appointed a judge of the High Court,serving both in the Chancery Division and the Administrative Court. He retired as a judge in 2008,and since that date has practised sd an arbitrator and a mediator.He is a consultant with the US law firm Winston & Strawn and the Indian law firm Fox Mandal Little.He has written extensivelt and lectured both in the U.K.and abroad,most particularly in the fields of insolvency,trusts,mediation and civil procedure. He is the joint author of the leading work on corporate insolvency Lightman and Moss on Administrators and Receivers,now in its 4th edition.

Richard De Lacy, QC
3 Stone Buildings
Chair, Accountancy Investigation and Disciplinary Board

Richard has practised in litigation in the Chancery and commercial fields for the whole of his career.

He has extensive experience in commercial litigation relating to banking, company law, insolvency and negligence proceedings with a particular emphasis upon disputes arising from accounting issues.

He has appeared in numerous cases involving accountancy firms from the largest to the smallest, whether as insolvency practitioners, defendants in professional indemnity claims or expert witnesses.

He also has extensive regulatory experience, having served on the Institute of Chartered Accountants Practice Regulation Review Committee (hearing cases involving the removal of practising licences in the specialist areas of audit, insolvency, and financial services).

Richard’s practice also covers property law, commercial contracts, banking and corporate finance, financial services and international and domestic arbitration.

He speaks fluent French, and is able to advise and to represent clients in the language.

Christopher Mallon
Partner, Co-head Corporate Restructuring Europe
Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom (UK) LLP

Chris Mallon co-leads the corporate restructuring practice in Europe.
Mr. Mallon works closely with the London Finance, Corporate M&A, and Private Equity teams, and the US Corporate Restructuring Department, and has a major role in growing the Firm’s restructuring practice in Europe.

His restructuring and insolvency credentials span cross border reorganisations involving a number of jurisdictions including England, the USA, Ireland, India, Russia, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Poland, Germany, Holland, Italy and Luxembourg.  His clients have included Enron, Global Crossing, WorldCom, Loral, Telewest, Parmalat, Eurotunnel, Gate Gourmet, Carlyle and Calyon.

Mr. Mallon has recently acted for Calyon in relation to ongoing negotiations with FGIC regarding settlement of transactions relating to the Rhineland Conduit, for Carlyle in relation to  Carlyle Capital Corporation Limited’s restructuring and renegotiation of its credit lines and Residential Capital LLC in connection with its financial restructuring.  He is currently advising British Vita in relation to the restructuring of complex debt facilities for its and its operating companies as well as various clients regarding their distressed investments arising in relation to the U.S. Chapter 11 filing of Lehman Brothers.  He has also been advising other lenders with structured investment vehicles on issues arising out of the recent credit crisis in the sub-prime and related structured investment markets.

Mr. Mallon writes and speaks frequently on insolvency and restructuring.  After graduating from the University of Western Australia, he was admitted as a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Western Australia in 1982 and as a Solicitor in England in 1987.

Adam Al-attar
Barrister
3-4 South Square, Gray's Inn

Professional career:

2007 Called to the Bar (Lincoln’s Inn)

Education:

BA (Oxon) Jurisprudence (First Class), St Peter's College, Oxford
BCL (Oxon) (First Class), Worcester College, Oxford
Bar Vocational Course, BPP, London

Areas of practice:

Corporate and Personal Insolvency law
Banking and Financial law
Company law
Trusts law

Academic positions:

Adam has been teaching the law of trusts in the University of Oxford since 2006.

Richard Bussell
Partner
Linklaters (London)

Richard acts on a wide range of financial and corporate restructurings, distressed M&A and formal insolvency proceedings. He represents banks, credit investors, companies and shareholders and acts for insolvency practitioners on formal insolvency proceedings. Richard has considerable recent cross border and international experience across Europe, the US and Latin America.

Recent significant experience includes leading the team advising Deloitte on the administration of Woolworths plc and advising PwC as administrators on the largest ever UK insolvency of Lehman Brothers International (Europe).

Other experience includes:

• advising Credit Suisse in relation to Eggborough Power Limited
• advising the Department of Transport in relation to the collapse of the Metronet Group
• acting for a financial institution in respect of the Parmalat Group collapse
• acting for second secured lenders to PrimaCom AG

Peter Clark
Director
Babson Capital Europe

Peter is Head of Legal & Compliance at Babson Capital Europe Ltd. He joined the firm in March 2007 from the London office of Latham & Watkins, where he was a senior member of the Finance Group. Peter's responsibilities at Babson include analysing the legal aspects of investment opportunities, structuring new funds, engaging in workout and restructuring discussions with respect to distressed loan investments and handling legal and compliance issues generally. Peter is a regular speaker at conferences on banking law and restructuring matters, most recently speaking on debt buybacks and intercreditor issues in complex restructurings. Peter is admitted as a Solicitor (England & Wales) and an Attorney at Law (California).

Owen Claxton-Ingham
Senior Manager, Business Recovery Services
PWC

Owen Claxton-Ingham is a JIEB qualified Chartered Accountant with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Leeds who has specialised in corporate recovery work for nearly 20 years. His principal experience is in the management of administrations, receiverships and liquidations and in COMI appointments.

Owen has acted as case manager on a number of different EC Regulation "COMI" appointments, whereby an English law insolvency appointment has been made over a foreign company because its centre of main interests has been found in England; he has dealt with cases involving such companies registered in Ireland, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Jersey and USA. These cases included ISA Daisytek, the first COMI appointment to be challenged through the courts, and the administrations of the MG Rover European subsidiaries. He probably has one of the broadest experiences of managing such cases and has contributed to conferences and publications on the subject. He is also one of PwC's national technical experts on the administration procedure.

Owen is currently the Business Unit Leader for PwC's Corporate Insolvency Management Team in Leeds, responsible for project managing corporate executory appointments from offices outside London.

Case experience includes:

• ISA Daisytek - case manager on the first COMI appointments to be actively challenged through the French and German courts
• MG Rover National Sales Companies - case manager COMI administration appointments to 8 European subsidiaries, trading through a controlled wind down to realise stock followed by distributions to creditors.
• Ci4net - compulsory winding up of a US registered company following a contested creditors petition
• Parkside Flexibles SA - administration of Polish printing company
• Adams Childrenswear & The Officers Club - administrations of retail chains
• Little Chef - administration and liquidation of restaurant chain
• Downs Court Properties - administration of property investment group
• Cains Beer - administration of brewery and pub chain
• Cammell Laird - receivership of shipyard operator

Karl Clowry
Partner
Paul Hastings

Karl Clowry is a Finance partner in the London office of Paul Hastings. Karl focuses his practice on debt restructuring and corporate refinancing,  representing corporate debtors, lenders, special situation investment groups, bondholders, distressed investors, financial sponsors, and insolvency practitioners. He concentrates on large cross-border transactions, usually involving complex capital structured financings.

Karl joined Paul Hastings from an international law firm where he was lead counsel for the second-lien lenders in the Schefenacker PLC restructuring, which was recognised as the Restructuring Deal of the Year at the 2008 IFLR European Awards. Karl has formerly represented senior and mezzanine lenders in a variety of restructurings of leverage, financings and in formal insolvency and restructuring proceedings.

Karl is a regular speaker at restructuring, insolvency, and banking conferences, and contributes to various banking and restructuring publications. He is the author of the "Debt for Equity Swaps" chapter in the book Workouts and Restructurings.

Karl graduated with a first class honours degree in Natural Sciences from Trinity College, Dublin, and with a Master in Laws degree, with merit, from the University of London. He qualified as a Barrister after attending the Inns of Court School of Law and also qualified as a solicitor.

Malcolm Cohen
Partner
BDO STOY HAYWARD

Professional Qualifications

• Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales
• Licensed Insolvency Practitioner
• Twenty five years business restructuring and insolvency experience.  Became Partner in BDO Stoy Hayward in 1989

Professional Responsibilities

• Member of the Vice Chancellor’s Insolvency Court Users Committee
• Member of R3 Council
• Member of R3 Technical Committee
• Former examiner for the Joint Insolvency Examining Board
• Co-author of “Insolvent Partnerships” published by Jordans
• Lectures widely on insolvency related matters and is a regular speaker at R3 (Association of Business Recovery Professionals)

Firm Responsibilities

• Leads the firm’s Implementation Unit in the Restructuring Group
• Worldwide relationship partner for BT plc

Some Recent Assignments

Joint Administrator of DKLL Solicitors, the widely reported case authority in respect of the Court's granting of an Administration Order to facilitate a prepackaged sale of the business and assets, in the face of opposition from the majority creditor.

Joint Administrator of 729 managed service companies - following recent changes within the tax legislation, the companies were no longer able to operate efficiently. Malcolm proposed an innovative approach to consolidate the insolvencies of the companies into one administration process, thus enabling significant savings, in both financial costs and time resources for the creditors.

Liquidator of Avendis Global Fund – a $100m Cayman Island hedge-fund operating out of Geneva and London.  The fund has invested heavily in debt instruments with significant exposure to the US sub-prime market.  Fraud investigation being undertaken to trace funds diverted into other companies in France and Switzerland.

Liquidator in “Project Rug” – taking proceedings against SEC listed company for fraudulently converting assets and against three directors for breach of fiduciary duties (two of whom resident in the USA).

Administrator of CR Sugar Trading commodity trader - running various arbitration proceedings against Chinese and Russian sugar exporters.

Trustee in Bankruptcy of several high profile bankrupts including Margaret Moore,  Leon Braunstein, Aishie Dhruve and Robert Condon undertaking asset tracing exercises in USA, Switzerland and various offshore locations.

Acting as Liquidator of Lakeland Power, Norweb Energy and several TXU subsidiaries, working closely with Edison Mission Group, a US based multinational energy provider.  Successfully negotiated claims and recoveries of £120m.

Acting as Administrator to Wimbledon South West Finance Bank plc, a licensed deposit taker with some 3000 depositors and loan book of £30m.

Liquidator of Claims Direct plc – investigating alleged misrepresentation claims against advisers re listing prospectus.

Advising British Telecommunications plc worldwide on various global restructuring and reorganisation programmes.

Acting as Liquidator of Eyestorm.com, the world’s largest online art gallery with showrooms in London, New York and Paris involving extensive liaison with US investors.

Cécile Dupoux
Partner
Linklaters (France)

Cécile specialises in rescues and reconstructions (advice on multi-creditor rescues and reconstructions outside formal insolvency proceedings (Mandat ad hoc and Conciliation), including areas such as work outs, debt restructurings, standstill arrangements and schemes of arrangement), corporate insolvency (advice on conducting a review of the strategic options open to a company, the benefits of a “redressement judiciaire”) and general commercial and banking law.

Recent significant experience includes: advising PwC as administrators on the largest ever UK insolvency of Lehman Brothers International (Europe), Senior lenders in LBO restructurings in the automotive and construction sectors, DBRS group (Canada) in the restructuring of DBRS and Creditors in the restructuring of Eurotunnel.

Cécile joined Linklaters in May 2006 as a Partner. She has been a member of the Paris bar since 1996 and a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales since 1998.

Andrew Evans
Partner
Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP 

Andrew Evans deals with a wide range of banking and finance transactions, in particular secured and unsecured lending, acquisition finance and property finance. Andrew is recommended for Bank Lending by the Legal 500.

Andrew joined the firm’s finance practice as a partner in 1995 from Frere Cholmeley Bischoff.  He previously worked in the legal department of National Westminster Bank plc.

Andrew regularly speaks at industry events such as C5 conferences. He has recently delivered papers on “The Aftermath of Spectrum: How to get a Fixed Charge over Book Debts” and “Strategies to Ensure Effective Co-ordination of Cross Border Enforcement: Your Action Plan in Contentious Recovery.”

Andrew is a member of R3 and the Law Society.

Mark Fennessy
Partner
Orrick

Mark Fennessy is a partner in Orrick's London office, and is a member of the Restructuring Group.  He has extensive knowledge of and experience in all areas of contentious and non-contentious turnaround and insolvency matters.  He has particular strengths in dealing with multifaceted group collapses and insolvency issues, particularly of an international nature.  He has been involved in a number of financing and re-financing assignments for a number of banks and funds in a range of sectors, and more recently, acted for a number of investment banks and funds in the restructuring of the Cheyne Finance, Rhinebridge and Whistlejacket Structured Investment Vehicles. The work on Cheyne Finance led to Mark and his team receiving the award for "Restructuring of the Year" at the 2009 IFLR Awards.
In the 2009/10 PLC Restructuring and Insolvency Handbook, Mark received the following commendation: “His cutting-edge practice includes structured investment vehicle restructuring work and hedge-fund related insolvency work.”

Admitted in
England and Wales

Memberships
Editorial Advisory Board of Sweet and Maxwell's Insolvency Intelligence
Insolvency Lawyers Association
Insolvency Practitioners Association
Law Society
Insol Europe
TMA
Fellow and Council Member of the Non-Administrative Receivership Association
Fellow of Association of Business Recovery Professionals (R3)

Publications
Widely published in the Financial Times, The Lawyer and International Corporate Rescue.
Contributing author to "Inside the Minds: UK Insolvency Client Strategies—Leading Lawyers on Key Points of Contention, Advising Debtors and Creditors, and Best Practices for Insolvency and Bankruptcy Matters."
Co-Author, "'Chapter 6: Schemes of Arrangement and Company Voluntary Arrangements,' Expedited Debt Restructuring, An International Comparative Analysis."

Speeches & Programs

Appearance on BBC's Business Today with regard to the Meridian collapse.

Related Practice Areas

• Banking and Finance

Education

• Authorised Fixed Charge Receiver, 2001
• Licensed Insolvency Practitioner, 2000
• Joint Insolvency Examination, 1999
• Law Society (Final Examinations), College of Law of England and Wales, Chester, 1991
• Diploma in Law (Bar Conversion), City University, London, 1989
• B.S.C., honors, Chemistry, University College London, 1988 

Honors

• Editor-in-Chief, International Corporate Rescue

Alain Le Berre
Managing Director
Huron Consulting Group

Alain has 20 years of experience guiding international clients through restructuring and crises situations, both financial and operational, in several European jurisdictions. He advises companies and financial institutions faced with operational and/or financial restructurings or stressed refinancings, and has also served as chief restructuring officer and chief financial officer, working with clients to engineer successful turnarounds.

Professional experience

Alain joined Huron from the Close Brothers European Special Situations team in London, where he was a managing director, leading continental European restructurings. Previously, he had been a partner with Ernst & Young Transaction Advisory Services and a partner with Andersen Corporate Finance in France, where he led numerous international restructurings, litigation-rich and transactional / distressed sales assignments. Additionally, he has worked for Boston Consulting Group in Germany, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and a German private equity investor.

A French national, Alain spent eight years working in Germany and is fluent in English and German.

Representative examples of Alain’s engagement experience include:

• Advised on the biggest recent French restructuring situations.
• Conducted several stressed financing/refinancings for LBOs, creating significant value for financial investors and private equity clients.
• Led numerous large international distressed assignments for German and multinational clients, including several very successful complex distressed sales and refinancings.

Education

• Master of Science, Engineering, Ecole Centrale de Paris, Paris, France
• Master of Business Administration, INSEAD, Fountainebleau, France

Professional associations

• Member, Turnaround Management Association
• Member, ARE in France

Speaking engagements

• Frequent chair, speaker and panelist at international conferences on restructuring and turnaround in the UK, Germany, and France.

Graeme Levy
Partner in the Finance Group and Head of Restructuring & Insolvency
Olswang

Graeme acts for banks, insolvency practitioners, borrowers and companies in financial difficulty in all aspects of debt finance, insolvency and corporate recovery work.

He also acts in general banking matters and has particular experience in media related financings and asset-based lending.

Peter Manning
Partner, Head of London Corporate Recovery and Restructuring Practice
Simmons & Simmons

Peter is a partner in the Banking Group at Simmons & Simmons, and lead’s the firm’s restructuring and insolvency practice. 

Peter joined Simmons in 1989 as a partner, having previously been a partner at DLA for 9 years.  His first insolvency assignment was in 1984, which shows how very old he is.  He was an active committee member with R3 for many years including acting as de facto general counsel. 

Peter advised the Conservative Party on its response to the Draft Financial Services and Markets Bill, and a number of his comments and amendments found there way into the Act.  He has also drafted insolvency laws for Kosovo and the Qatar International Financial Centre.
Significant assignments have included:

LBIE – acting for 100+ hedge funds as well as AIMA and MFA the UK and US hedge fund industry bodies.
Bear Stearns – acting for the European entities.
Railtrack – acting for the company and the administrators.
MCI Worldcom – acting for European entities.
Global TeleSystems – company.
Enron, ITV Digital, TXU, British Energy – acting for the relevant regulators.
Courts – lenders.
Refco – UK liquidators.
Elektrim, Metronet and Eurotunnel – note trustees.
Peter is a graduate of Oxford University.

Douglas MacDonald
Senior Partner
The MacDonald Partnership

Doug is a Chartered Accountant and Insolvency Practitioner. After qualifying with KPMG he founded TMP (formerly The MacDonald Partnership) in 1988.

TMP specialises in debtor led turnarounds and was independently ranked (by its peers) as one of the top 10 turnaround finance firms in the UK (in 2001).
Doug has specialised in financial turnarounds since 1992 and is particularly focused on the raising and structuring of turnaround finance deals in financially distressed situations. He is a former Chairman of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) Turnaround Finance Group. He has contributed Turnaround Finance Chapters for both ICAEW's Corporate Finance Manual and ICAEW's Turnaround Manual.

He is a regular speaker at turnaround finance courses and conferences. Doug has also acted as the R3 Liaison Champion for the Finance and Lease Association. (R3 is the leading trade professional body of insolvency and turnaround finance practitioners in the UK).
He is the author of Douglas MacDonald's Insolvency Volumes which is an extensive on-screen guide published by Jordans; software that the majority in the insolvency profession use on a daily basis.

Simon Mortimore, QC
3 – 4 South Square, Gray’s Inn

Simon Mortimore QC: QC 1991, called to the Bar 1972. Practices at 3 – 4 South Square, Gray’s Inn. Specialises in insolvency law, banking, corporate and commercial law. Recent work includes acting for numerous counterparties in the Lehman and Icelandic bank collapses, noteholders in Sigma Finance in their appeal to the House of Lords, noteholders in Cheyne Finance, the administrators in their successful appeal to the Court of Appeal in Innovate Logistics, and the Australian liquidators in their successful appeal to the House of Lords in HIH. Other important cases include acting for one of the main subcontractors in Metronet, the T&N pension trustees in the T&N and Federal-Mogul reconstruction, and the liquidators and administrators of Barings. More than 70 reported cases. Consultant editor of Mortimore: Company Directors (OUP, 2009). Member of the BVI Bar and admitted to the Bermuda and Cayman Bars for specific cases.   

Nick Moser
Partner
Taylor Wessing

Nick is described in Legal 500 as "very practical and commercially astute" and in Chambers as "calm, sensible and great to turn to when you have a complex problem".  He is named as a leader in restructuring and insolvency in the Chambers Global Guide to the Legal Profession.  Nick studied at Lincoln College, Oxford, graduating with an MA in Jurisprudence.

Sven Schelo
Partner
Linklaters (Germany)

Sven is a partner in our banking practice in Frankfurt and head of restructuring and insolvency practice in Germany. He specialises in advising banks with regard to crisis and insolvency matters affecting borrowers, corporates in relation to restructuring issues, shareholders and investors in situations of financial distress and insolvency of the company/ target, and in distressed M&A transactions.

Recent significant experience includes advising PwC as administrators on the high profile current administration of Lehman Brothers International (Europe) (Europe) (Lead in Germany).
Other experience includes:

• advising TMD Friction and the insolvency administrator, Dr Frank Kebekus, on the sale to Pamplona Capital as well as during the preceding restructuring process
• advising IKB on its restructuring and refinancing
• advising certain investors on the financial restructuring of Conergy AG

Tom Smith
Barrister
3 – 4 South Square
Gray’s Inn

Areas of practice:

Financial Law - Banking, Corporate Insolvency, Financial Services, Insurance.
Company Law
Trusts
Commercial Litigation and Arbitration

Professional career:

Called to the Bar 27 November 1999 (Middle Temple)

Education:

Inns of Court School of Law - 1998 to 1999 Bar Vocational Course
Clare College, Cambridge – 1997 to 1998 LLM (Masters in law) First class
Clare College, Cambridge – 1994 to 1997 BA (Hons) in Law, First class

Awards and Scholarships:

Andrew Speirs
Managing Director
Hawkpoint

Responsibilities

• Managing Director
• Corporate Advisory and Private Equity
• Restructuring and Debt Advisory

Career

• Hawkpoint
• Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin, Director
• Deutsche Bank, Director
• Morgan Grenfell

Robin Tutty
Partner, Head of Cross-Departmental Restructuring Group
Field Fisher Waterhouse

Robin has specialised in business recovery and non-contentious insolvency matters for more than twenty years.

He has considerable experience in advising directors of troubled companies and helping them formulate and agree restructuring plans.  He also frequently advises stakeholders and insolvency practitioners on a wide variety of restructuring matters.

Robin joined Field Fisher Waterhouse as a partner in January 2007 from Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Gates and is responsible for the development of our cross-departmental Restructuring and Insolvency Group.  He is a regular speaker at conferences and seminars and regularly contributes to legal and trade publications.  He is a member of R3 and INSOL (the International Association of Restructuring, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Professionals).