Distressed Debt, Securities and Claims Trading

Hunton Andrews Kurth’s distressed debt, securities and claims trading team has represented investors in thousands of purchases and sales of interests in domestic and international companies in, near or emerging from financial distress. We represent commercial banks, investment banks, broker-dealers and hedge funds in their acquisitions and dispositions of distressed investments, including bank loans, securities, derivatives, bankruptcy claims and other interests. We routinely draft and negotiate debt, security and claim trade confirmations, purchase and sale agreements, transfer agreements, participation and subparticipation agreements, pricing letters, collateral annexes, netting agreements, proceeds letters, subscription letters, confidentiality agreements, “big boy” letters, side letters and related transfer and settlement documentation.

Our attorneys are well-known in the distressed debt arena and remain focused on distressed asset transactions. Having served as external and internal counsel to varied financial institutions, we have a unique appreciation for transaction complexities, both legal and commercial, extrinsic and intrinsic. We are members of the Loan Syndications and Trade Association (LSTA), the Loan Market Association (LMA) and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) and are active participants in LSTA legal advisory and documentation committees that develop standard documentation and advisory/working groups that promote credit-specific and general secondary loan market liquidity and efficiency. Our attorneys are frequent panelists at LSTA conferences and authors and draftsmen of various LSTA-published documents, articles and market advisories on a broad range of topics affecting the secondary loan market, including forms of LSTA standard documentation, user’s guides, credit-specific trading advisories and cross-border trading literature.

We advise clients at all stages of the life of the financial asset, from asset origination through pretrade diligence, confirmation negotiation, trading and restructuring, whether through bankruptcy or private transactions. Protecting our clients from the dire legal and economic consequences of trade settlement on nonmarket terms is our mission. Areas of substantive counsel include due diligence, internal compliance, regulatory, bankruptcy, corporate and securities, with an emphasis on public side/private side, confidential information flow issues and Securities Act registration exemption analysis. We are a full-service, global law firm and as such, work closely with business tax, structured finance and securitization, private equity, derivatives, banking and finance, real estate, bankruptcy, litigation, and other practice groups to bring the full breadth of our experience as needed to each transaction.