Cross-Border Rescue and Failure: Temas Candentes (Hot Topics)

Christopher Andrew Jarvinen is a partner on the Business Reorganization Team in Miami. His practice focuses on handling chapter 11 cases, cross-border insolvency matters, out-of-court restructurings and bankruptcy-related litigation. Christopher’s extensive experience has equipped him to provide clients in a diverse range of industries with value-added, cost-effective solutions for complex, business and litigation, challenges arising in the context of financially-distressed situations, corporate restructurings, and contentious bankruptcy proceedings.

Laura Hatfield is a partner with Bedell Cristin in Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, and heads its Litigation and Insolvency & Restructuring groups in the Cayman Islands. She focuses on bankruptcy, restructuring, investor rights, fiduciary duties in corporate governance and professional negligence.

Ms. Hatfield has advised bankruptcy and restructuring professionals, lenders, investors and professional services providers in the Cayman Islands, USA and Europe, and has been involved in most of the significant cases of the last decade in the Cayman Islands, including Bear Stearns, Weavering and the precedent-setting cases establishing the basis for corporate liquidation based on the just and equitable grounds for failure of a company’s purpose when a fund is in run-off. As well as litigation up to Privy Council level, she has used alternative dispute resolution methods to conclude disputes and has been involved in several mediated settlements. She was qualified as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales in 1989 and was admitted as a Cayman Islands attorney-at-law in 2001. A member of the Law Society of England and Wales, Cayman Islands Law Society, ABI, IWIRC and INSOL,

Ms. Hatfield has significant experience in cross-border and multi-jurisdictional cases, including regulatory regimes, and often works closely with U.S. attorneys and insolvency professionals. She received her B.Sc. from the University of Exeter in England.

Gregory S. Grossman is a founding shareholder at Sequor Law in Miami, where his practice focuses on bankruptcy, insolvency litigation, creditors’ rights, international asset recovery and litigation involving the Uniform Commercial Code. He has particular experience in cross-border insolvency cases, having filed the first chapter 15 bankruptcy in the State of Florida when he successfully obtained “foreign main case” recognition of insolvency proceedings for a failed financial institution in Barbados.

Mr. Grossman has since represented foreign insolvency trustees in more than 16 additional chapter 15 cases arising from insolvencies in Antigua, Austria, Brazil, BVI, Canada, Cayman Islands, Chile, Mexico, Romania and the U.K. In domestic bankruptcies and insolvency litigation, he has represented parties in all facets of reorganizations and liquidations, including stay-relief litigation, cash-collateral disputes, bad-faith dismissals, avoidance actions and plan-confirmation disputes.

Mr. Grossman received his B.A. in finance and his J.D. with honors from the University of Florida, where he was a member of Order of the Coif and the Moot Court Board.

Hon. Laurel M. Isicoff is Chief Judge for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida in Miami, initially appointed on Feb. 13, 2006, and named chief judge on Oct. 1, 2016. She also serves on ABI’s Board of Directors. Judge Isicoff is president-elect of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges and an ABI Board member. She also is a member of the Pro Bono Committee of the American College of Bankruptcy, as well as chair of its Judicial Outreach Committee.

Judge Isicoff currently serves as judicial chair of the Pro Bono Committee of the Business Law Section of the Florida Bar and is a member of the Florida Bar Standing Committee on Pro Bono.

Prior to becoming a judge, she specialized in commercial bankruptcy, foreclosure and workout matters, both as a transactional attorney and litigator, for 14 years with the law firm of Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton after practicing for eight years with Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, now known as Squire Patton Boggs. In private practice, she also developed a specialty in SEC receiverships involving Ponzi schemes.

After graduating from law school, Judge Isicoff clerked for Hon. Daniel S. Pearson at the Florida Third District Court of Appeal before entering private practice. She is a past president of the Bankruptcy Bar Association (BBA) of the Southern District of Florida and, until she took the bench, served as the chair of the Pro Bono Task Force for the BBA. Judge Isicoff speaks extensively on bankruptcy around the country, and is committed to increasing pro bono service, diversity in the bankruptcy community and financial literacy.

Judge Isicoff received her J.D. from the University of Miami School of Law in 1982.