About

Number of years practice: 30 Law school attended: Duke University, LSE, Columbia Law School Languages spoken: English Principal practice areas: Bankruptcy and Restructuring, Finance, M&A, Private Equity Admissions: New York, US Court of Appeals (First Circuit), US Supreme Court

Over the course of his career, Richard Cooper has worked on some of the most high-profile bankruptcy cases, from Pan American Airways in the early 1990s to Lehman Brothers in 2008. As a result, Cooper’s restructuring expertise has been in great demand in Latin America. In recent years, Cooper has advised on a number of complex restructurings in Mexico, including: acting as counsel to an ad hoc group of bondholders in connection with the 2013 debt restructuring of Maxcom Telecomunicaciones, the first time a Mexican company has managed to effect a chapter 11 plan involving a concurrent tender offer and recapitalization; representing Corporación GEO, one of Mexico’s largest residential construction companies, in connection with the restructuring of approximately $4.5bn of its bank and bond debt (the first restructuring to be filed in Mexico through a pre-packaged bankruptcy proceeding since amendment of the Ley de Concursos Mercantiles); and counsel to the ad hoc committee of international bank creditors of Comerci, Mexico’s third-largest retailer and the operator of Costco Wholesale Corp. in Mexico, in connection with its restructuring of $3.3bn worth of creditor claims. More broadly, Cooper’s practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions, and leveraged finance, including project and acquisition finance.