Finding Opportunity in Crisis

Europe’s leading law firms are on alert as the currency crisis threatens to plunge the continent back into recession. With the euro’s malaise quickly spreading from one country to the next, firms are preparing for a new wave of bankruptcy, restructuring, litigation, and other finance-related work.

In Greece, for example, lawyers have been advising clients on contingency planning, such as putting provisions into commercial contracts should the country leave the euro. German travel operator Tui AG is one of the few companies to publicly acknowledge that it has asked its Greek counterparties to sign new contracts that would oblige them to honor existing financial obligations in the event of a currency change. Tui has previously been advised on transactional matters by Allen & Overy, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, and Herbert Smith. All three firms declined to comment on whether they were involved in the Greek contract negotiations. (Indeed, given the sensitivity of the situation, no firm would comment on the record about crisis-related representations.)