Pandemic Pandemonium: Litigating in the Time of COVID-19

Andrew Scruton, CTP is a senior managing director with FTI Consulting, Inc. in New York in its Corporate Finance/Restructuring segment. He has more than 25 years of experience as a financial advisor to both companies and creditors, and he has an extensive background managing distressed or troubled corporate situations, both in and out-of-court.

Mr. Scruton has experience in the energy, shipping, telecommunications, manufacturing, retail and consumer product industries. He also has expertise in analyzing critical strategic, operational and financial factors, including business plan assessment, financial performance and forecast evaluation, and financing and capital structure evaluation. He also specializes in designing and developing restructuring theories and solutions, using refined analytical techniques, assessing business prospects and credit risk in a diverse range of situations, and issuing recommendations based on syntheses of relevant factors, which include industry outlook, cyclicality, maturity and competitive dynamics.

Mr. Scruton has restructuring transaction experience in bankruptcy proceedings in the U.S., Europe and Caribbean. He has designed and developed sophisticated financial models to assist in the assessment of potential recoveries to constituencies. He also has written expert reports and/or testified in numerous high-profile chapter 11 proceedings, including Energy XXI, Motors Liquidation (formerly GM), Nextel International and Adelphia.

Mr. Scruton is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, and previously held NASD-registered licenses 7, 24 and 63 from December 2004 to June 2006 with Giuliani Capital Advisors. He received his M.A. in mathematics and management studies from Cambridge University.

Judge Elizabeth S. Stong has served as U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Eastern District of New York since 2003. Before entering on duty, she was a litigation partner and associate at Willkie Farr & Gallagher in New York, an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, and law clerk to Hon. A. David Mazzone, U.S. District Judge in the District of Massachusetts.

Judge Stong is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Council and Membership Committee of the American Law Institute. She is also a Trustee and member of the Executive Committee of the Practising Law Institute, a member of the board of P.R.I.M.E. Finance, an international dispute resolution organization that promotes judicial education in complex financial disputes, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Harvard Law School Association of New York City. She is co-chair of the New York Fellows of the American Bar Foundation, serves on the ABA Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service, represents the ABA’s National Conference of Federal Trial Judges in the ABA House of Delegates, and is a member of the Council of the ABA Business Law Section. She serves as co-chair of the New York City Bar Council on the Profession, a member of the New York County Lawyers Association Justice Center Advisory Board, and a board member of the New York Law Institute. She is an adjunct professor at Brooklyn Law School and St. John’s University School of Law.

Judge Stong is active in international judicial capacity building and has trained judges on five continents, including in Central Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and the Arabian Peninsula, as an expert with the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, and U.S. Department of Commerce Commercial Law Development Program. She has also consulted with the Supreme Court of China and People’s High Courts in Beijing and Guangzhou, and has participated in judicial workshops in Cambodia, Brazil, Argentina and Chile. She is an elected member of the European Law Institute and an Adviser to the ELI-UNIDROIT Principles of Transnational Civil Procedure project.

Judge Stong previously served as President of the Harvard Law School Association, chair of the International Judicial Relations Committee of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges, Vice President of the Federal Bar Council, Vice President of the Board of Directors of New York City Bar Fund Inc. and the City Bar Justice Center, Chair of the New York City Bar’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee and Vice Chair of its Judiciary Committee, the Board of Directors of the International Insolvency Institute, and an officer of the ABA Business Law Section. She was also a member of the board of MFY Legal Services, Inc., one of the largest providers of free civil legal services to low-income residents of New York City, and served on the ABA’s Standing Committee on the American Judicial System, Standing Committee on Continuing Legal Education, Commission on Women in the Profession, and Commission on Homelessness and Poverty.

Judge Stong received the Brooklyn Bar Association’s Freda Nisnewitz Award for Pro Bono Service, the New York Institute of Credit’s Hon. Cecelia H. Goetz Award, the ABA Business Law Section’s Glass Cutter Award, and the MFY Legal Services Scales of Justice Award, among other recognitions.

Judge Stong received her A.B. magna cum laude and her J.D. from Harvard University.

Susheel Kirpalani is a partner and chairs the Bankruptcy and Restructuring Group at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP in New York, where his practice concentrates on creditors’ rights, bankruptcy litigation and out-of-court restructurings. He has broad experience in the resolution of bankruptcy and financial disputes in some of the most complex recent chapter 11 cases, including representing the independent manager of NII International Telecom; serving as the court-appointed examiner and mediator in Dynegy; representing statutory creditors’ committees in SemGroup, Sentinel, Refco and Enron; serving as conflicts counsel to estate fiduciaries in Lehman Brothers, Idearc, Washington Mutual and Solutia; representing the officers and directors of Lukoil Americas Corp.; and representing the controlling stockholder in LyondellBasell and Sbarro. He also has broad experience in international insolvencies, leading the firm’s engagements for Dubai World in drafting Dubai’s bankruptcy legislation for public decree companies, and for the joint liquidators of Kingate Global and Euro Funds in the SIPC proceeding against Bernard L. Madoff’s defunct firm.

Previously, Mr. Kirpalani was the youngest lawyer ever elected partner at the law firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP. He has been recognized in The Deal as one of eight attorneys “poised to become significant figures in the bars of cities ranging from Houston to Paris.” He was also recognized in Law360 as one of the 10 most admired bankruptcy attorneys in the country. In 2010, Chambers USA ranked him in Band One, and in 2013, The American Lawyer named him “Dealmaker of the Year.” Mr. Kirpalani is a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy and a recipient of the South Asian Bar Association of New York’s Litigation Achievement Award.

He received his J.D. from Fordham University School of Law, where he served as associate editor of the Fordham Law Review from 1993-94.

Ms. Parlin is a partner in Holland & Knight LLP’s New York office and a member of its Litigation Section. She practices in the areas of bankruptcy, creditors’ rights and litigation, and represents persons who are in or are touched by financial distress, including debtors, indenture trustees, secured and unsecured creditors, bondholders and other parties in interest in chapter 11 cases, 363 sales and other bankruptcy-related matters. She also represents defendants/creditors in preference and fraudulent transfer actions, as well as secured creditors/lessors in actions to recover collateral and/ or leased property, and she advises creditors on pre-bankruptcy planning and protection strategies, advises investors in distressed-debt situations, and defends creditors in claims-objection proceedings.

Ms. Parlin has represented the foreign representative/debtor and creditors in numerous chapter 15 cases, and she is experienced in matters concerning corporate governance, director and officer liability, derivative and securities fraud litigation, SEC investigations and commercial litigation. She has also advised boards of directors with respect to their fiduciary obligations. Ms. Pafrlin has defended law firm clients in cases alleging claims to recover unfinished business, preferences, fraudulent conveyances under state and federal law, as well as damages for breach of contract and torts such as tortious interference and aiding and abetting breaches of fiduciary duty. She also advises individual partners faced with liability after their firms filed bankruptcy.

Ms. Parlin was listed in New York Super Lawyers magazine for 2013-16 and is a member of the American and New York Bar Associations, as well as ABI. She is admitted to practice in New York and New Jersey, as well as the U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York and the District of New Jersey.

Ms. Parlin received her B.A. magna cum laude in religious studies from Yale University and her J.D. cum laude from New York University School of Law, where she received the George A. Katz Memorial Award for Academic Excellence in Securities Regulation from New York University School of Law, and also served as staff editor and articles editor of the Environmental Law Journal.

Robert J. Feinstein is the managing partner of the New York office of Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones LLP, which he opened in 2011. He represents debtors, creditors’ committees, equity committees, acquirers and examiners in business reorganizations and related litigation. He also represents debtors, foreign representatives and other case constituencies in cross-border insolvency cases.

Mr. Feinstein’s recent engagements include lead counsel to the official creditors’ committees appointed in the chapter 11 cases of J Crew, Whiting Petroleum, Ascena (Ann Taylor/LOFT/Lane Bryant), Ditech, Payless ShoeSource, The Weinstein Company, Barney’s Inc., Aeropostale and Jevic Holding Corp. (appearing on behalf of the creditors’ committee in the U.S. Supreme Court). On the debtor side, he has represented Digital Domain Media Group, former world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson and Penthouse magazine publisher General Media, Inc. in their chapter 11 cases.

Mr. Feinstein is a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy and an adjunct professor in the St. Johns University LL.M. Program, and he frequently writes and lectures on bankruptcy topics. He is ranked among Bankruptcy/ Restructuring attorneys by Chambers USA and is a member of the International Insolvency Institute, and he served as an officer of the Insolvency Section of the International Bar Association.

Mr. Feinstein received his B.A. from Lafayette College and his J.D. magna cum laude from Boston University School of Law.