Interviews

German restructuring professionals and court personnel have formed a new association aimed at improving the country’s restructuring and insolvency laws and court processes. Its new treasurer Volker Beissenhirtz tells GRR how the group plans to achieve its goals.

26 May 2022

Alvarez & Marsal’s Tiffany Wong and Alex Lawson tell GRR about the challenges they faced as Chinese coffee chain Luckin Coffee’s joint provisional liquidators, how they got the complex restructuring over the line and why ESG considerations are not yet having a huge influence in the restructuring space.

19 May 2022

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Alan Kornberg, co-head of Paul Weiss’ restructuring group in New York, speaks to GRR about a transitional era in international restructurings as countries around the world migrate to Chapter 11-like regimes, how rescue loans are being used as a gateway to distressed investments and why SPACs might not be the panacea that everyone originally thought.

18 February 2022

Former English Court of Appeal judge Sir David Richards has joined One Essex Court in London with plans to take appointments as an arbitrator, as he says the growth in cross-border cases has led experts to see arbitration as a sensible way of resolving disputes in restructurings.

08 November 2021

Edwin Tong SC, a former head of restructuring and corporate insolvency at Allen & Gledhill, turned to politics a decade ago. In 2018, he was tasked with the development and promotion of Singapore’s legal sector – including fulfilling its self-proclaimed ambition to become a restructuring hub: so GRR caught up with him to ask how that ambition was coming along, five years down the line.

28 September 2021

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“The development of Singapore into an Asian restructuring hub needs time. We have all the tools necessary to get there, but you need to give us time to develop.” Chong Yee Leong, head of Allen & Gledhill’s restructuring & insolvency practice and co-head of its international arbitration practice, discusses the highs and lows Singapore has faced as it presses on with its bid to become a restructuring hub, and compares them to some of the lessons learned from its 30-year journey to becoming a popular seat for international arbitrations.

08 July 2021

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“The international work is polarising into a small number of players, none of which include the Big Four.” Alvarez & Marsal’s European leader Richard Fleming and UK head Mark Firmin discuss the firm’s expansion amid reform at the Big Four; as well as covid, Brexit, why landlords have had their heads in the sand for too long, and the rise of the UK restructuring plan.

18 June 2021

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Fried Frank restructuring and insolvency partners Ashley Katz and Mandip Englund give their views on the UK’s new pre-pack regulations and why a clear plan is needed to save businesses when an “artificial and unsustainable” bubble created by government support packages bursts.

22 March 2021

Ahead of his return to Shearman & Sterling in New York, former Lehman Brothers managing director Mark Shapiro spoke to GRR about his 30-year career and how opportunities for hedge funds have “changed quickly” during the covid-19 pandemic.

28 January 2021

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“The hunt for talent is a challenge at the moment within the restructuring sector. Purely because people are either already busy or expecting to get busier in the year to come.” David Fleming, the head of Duff & Phelps’ UK advisory team, spoke to GRR in December, soon after news broke that its global restructuring advisory practice was acquiring Hong-Kong headquartered Borelli Walsh. With at least four senior hires in the UK, a new office in Sydney and expansion in the Middle East and New York in 2020 too, we asked Fleming for his thoughts on the firm’s year ahead.

12 January 2021