Advising creditors and stakeholders is at the core of Bird & Bird‘s practice, with the team’s areas of expertise including refinancings, insolvency-related litigation as well as in-court negotiations in the context of cross-border restructurings. The team has a track record acting in the financial services, automotive, energy, aviation and retail segments and is jointly steered by the debt restructuring experts Romain de Ménonville and Nicolas Morelli.
Legal 500 Editorial commentary
Accolades
Client satisfaction: NPS ®
Testimonials
Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.
- ‘Legal expertise, knowledge of amicable and collective procedures, and of the various stakeholders involved in restructuring. Support in negotiations with other parties, and in facilitating the negotiation process with borrowers, shareholders, and other debtors. High-quality drafting of procedural and contractual documents, and effective coordination and seamless integration between these two stages.’
- ‘‘Excellent responsiveness and great availability’
- ‘Romain de Ménonville and his team have been supporting our institution for many years. They stand out for their high-quality work, excellent responsiveness, and exceptional ability to make pools work even in the presence of interbank discrepancies.’
- ‘Romain de Ménonville and Pierre-Jean Chenard are very responsive, have a complete grasp of the issues concerning their clients, and are capable of demonstrating creativity in the solutions they propose.’
- ‘The team is very responsive, and the quality of client relations is its main strength (both with third parties and with clients who sometimes have very different interests). The frequency and quality of client reporting are very satisfactory compared to the competition.
Key clients
- Arkéa Banque Entreprises et Institutionnels
- Barclays Bank PLC
- BNP Paribas
- Bred Banque Populaire
- Crédit Lyonnais
- Groupe Crédit Agricole
- La Banque Postale Asset Management
- Société Générale
- Etat Français / French State
- Banque Palatine
- Bpifrance
- Banque Populaire
Work highlights
Advised a pool of 15 banks since on the four successive financial restructurings of the GMD Group, the latest transaction involved assisting the banks in the context of a takeover by a Chinese industrial investor, including €560m of restructured debt.
Advised a pool of eleven banks on the financial restructuring of Groupe Matière, a French family-owned company founded in 1932, specialised in engineering and infrastructure construction.
Advised Renault SAS and other entities of the Renault Group on the financial difficulties of Hyvia, a subsidiary owned equally by Renault SAS and Plug Power, formed as part of a joint venture agreement for the development of hydrogen-powered vehicles.
Lawyers
Leading partners
The strongest partners in their field, leading on market-leading deals and endorsed by peers and clients alike.
Practice head
Nicolas Morelli; Romain de Ménonville
Other key lawyers
Pierre-Jean Chenard