Business Restructuring, Workouts and Bankruptcy

McAfee & Taft’s Business Restructuring, Workouts and Bankruptcy practice represents clients in all phases of business restructuring and insolvency matters, including business reorganizations, recapitalizations, debt workouts, bankruptcy litigation, and the enforcement of creditors’ rights and remedies. Our clients include distressed companies, corporate and individual creditors and borrowers, unsecured creditors’ committees, banks and other financial institutions, investors, landlords, corporate directors and officers, and buyers and sellers of distressed assets.

We also counsel companies on matters related to the ongoing financial health and growth of their organizations. This includes advising clients on implementing changes to their credit and collection policies and procedures as a means to enhance cash flow and improve their financial positions, restructuring operations to retire debt at a discount, and acquiring assets from financially distressed or highly leveraged companies. Clients are also counseled on structuring transactions so as to anticipate or mitigate the risk of bankruptcy.

Our attorneys also have experience serving as trustees and liquidating agents in complex bankruptcy estates.

Representative services include:

• Workouts and restructurings on behalf of creditors and borrowers involving all types of financings, properties and businesses
• Representation of official and ad hoc committees of secured and unsecured creditors and liquidating agents and trustees
• Creditor’s rights in bankruptcy, including automatic stay and cash collateral litigation, debtor-in-possession and plan confirmation financing, pre-negotiated and pre-packaged Chapter 11 cases, and fraudulent transfer and preference defense
• Purchases and sales of troubled loans
• Due diligence regarding distressed assets (including analysis of land use, environmental and water issues)
• Investor acquisition of distressed assets
• Deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure and voluntary liquidation on behalf of lenders
• Management and disposition of troubled projects and REO
• Partnership and limited liability company workouts and dissolutions
• Litigation involving the validity and priority of mortgages, security interests and liens of all types, including oil and gas liens, mechanics’ and materialmen’s liens, tax liens and PACA trust claims
• Litigation involving enforcement proceedings, including collections, forcible entry and detainers, judicial and nonjudicial foreclosures and receiverships, as well as defense of proceedings to enjoin enforcement
• Lender liability defense
• Payment disputes in construction loans, including mechanics’ liens, stop notices and construction disputes
• Anti-deficiency issues and usury

Our team of experienced lawyers handles both transactional and litigation restructuring matters and are experienced in developing practical solutions to complex situations both in and out of court. The firm ranks #1 in Oklahoma with the most number of attorneys ranked in the area of bankruptcy and creditor rights in The Best Lawyers in America, and many of our attorneys are actively involved and have served in leadership positions with the bankruptcy sections of the state and local bar associations.

Because of the complex nature of business reorganizations, the Business Restructuring, Workouts and Bankruptcy practice frequently draws upon the multi-disciplinary support of attorneys in the firm’s litigation, tax, oil and gas, mergers and acquisitions, real estate, banking, finance, corporate and securities, business transactions, regulatory, environmental, employment, employee benefits and executive compensation, and intellectual property practices. By doing so, we are able to analyze the issues from all perspectives and provide options for well-informed business decisions.

For more information about our practice, click on one of the practice area links on the right.