Restructuring & Insolvency Proceedings
Devise effective crisis recovery optimising collection for the client while ensuring the durability of the debtor’s business activity
BMH AVOCATS’ Restructuring team advises a French and foreign clientele on a full range of topics: from restructuring to the liquidation of companies in distress. We assist primarily creditors (particularly banks), potential investors (companies or funds), shareholders and managers, foreign administrative receivers as well as businesses in difficulty. Our expertise is distinguished in particular by our multicultural approach, which allows us to deal with subjects with an international dimension and involving several jurisdictions.
We support our clients in a proactive manner in negotiations on preventive procedures (ad hoc mandate, conciliation) and we reflect creatively on crisis resolution and on the valorisation of assets.
In the context of judicial proceedings (safeguarding, receivership and liquidation), we assist our clients at every stage of the proceedings, and we represent them before the courts.
Our complementary know-how in mergers and acquisitions, financing and litigation enables us to to develop practical, innovative and effective solutions.
Our expertise regroups
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Preparation
for the opening of various proceedings and support to debtors throughout collective proceedings
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Negotiation
on behalf of debtors or creditors in ad hoc mandate and conciliation proceedings
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Renegotiation
and the structuring of financial debt (real estate or corporate)
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Support during call
banks in banking pools
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Negotiation
and implementation of trusts
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Representation
and debt collection for creditors, particularly foreign banks, support in creditor committees
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Declaration
of claims, actions for recovery
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Auditor missions
during safeguarding, receivership or liquidation proceedings
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Representation
of particularly German-speaking, foreign judicial administrators in French collective proceedings
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Development
of safeguarding and recovery plans
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The takeover
of businesses in distress (sale plans)
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Litigation
(invalidity proceedings; shareholders’ or management liability)
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Piloting and strategy
for debt collection on behalf of creditors and their insurers in complex cases of cross-border insolvency
Fields of intervention
- Bank
- Finance
- Distribution
- Construction / Real Estate
- Automotive
- Aeronautics
Examples of assignments
Petroplus: Assistance, advice, negotiation, and representation of the principal shareholder (Petroplus Marketing AG, originally listed in Zurich) and its Swiss court-appointed liquidators in connection with the reorganization and subsequent judicial liquidation of an oil refinery, including the establishment of a trust to manage an oil inventory
Nice-Matin: Advising, assisting, and representing the bank creditor that financed the newspaper’s printing press in connection with the sale of assets to SCIC Nice-Matin
Advising a German bank as part of a lending syndicate on the negotiation of bank debt related to a portfolio of office buildings as part of a conciliation proceeding involving the establishment of a trust
Advising a German bank as part of a banking syndicate on the debt restructuring of a European printing group
Advised a German bank on the debt restructuring strategy for a French real estate company, a subsidiary of a publicly traded German real estate group undergoing insolvency proceedings (debt-to-equity swap)
Advising a German bank as part of a lending syndicate in connection with the debt restructuring of a major infrastructure project
Assistance to a credit insurer that had insured oil supplies in connection with insolvency proceedings in Denmark and Singapore
Assistance and advice to a banking syndicate in the renegotiation of a loan to finance a shopping center
Comprehensive Strategic and Legal Advice for the Closure of Industrial Sites in France
Aristophil: Advising and representing an Austrian court-appointed administrator in connection with the bankruptcy proceedings of a French company that sold historical manuscripts to 17,000 investors
Representing a British creditor in connection with secondary proceedings in France involving a German company: challenging the jurisdiction of French courts to open secondary proceedings at the request of the German provisional insolvency administrator; defending the client against actions seeking to invalidate the security interests taken to secure a loan; defending the client in a liability action brought by the French liquidator
Strategic consultation on the risks of liability for the German parent company in the event of insolvency proceedings being initiated against its French subsidiary
Accolades
Lexology Index 2026: Restructuring & Insolvency
Lexology Index 2026: Restructuring & Insolvency
Legal Leaders League 2026: Restructuring & insolvency
Legal 500 EMEA 2018
