Weil Gotshal billings on American Airlines bankruptcy reach $74.5m
Advisers on the American Airlines bankruptcy case are set to earn over $371.7m (£218.3m) in fees and $16.3m (£9.6m) in expenses, with lead legal counsel Weil Gotshal & Manges billing the highest amount.
June 27, 2014 at 08:55 AM
3 minute read
Advisers on the American Airlines bankruptcy case are set to earn over $371.7m (£218.3m) in fees and $16.3m (£9.6m) in expenses, with lead legal counsel Weil Gotshal & Manges billing the highest amount.
This week, a US bankruptcy court approved billings for 47 of the professional firms to have taken a role on the case.
The final tally, detailed in a court filing, covers advisory work extending from November 2011, when former American Airlines owner AMR filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, to the approval of its bankruptcy-exit proposal 23 months later.
Weil, which was instructed as the main legal adviser to the debtors, is set to take the lion's share of the earnings with fees of $74.5m (£43.8m) and an additional $2.9m (£1.7m) in expenses, totalling $77.4m (£45.5m).
Meanwhile Debevoise & Plimpton, which advised the debtors as aircraft counsel, will pocket $53.7m (£31.5m), excluding expenses of $371,194 (£218,035).
Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, which was instructed by the unsecured creditors committee, will gain $27.8m (£16.3m) in fees while Paul Hastings, which advised the debtors on labour and employment and litigation matters, is in line for fees of $26.2m (£15.4m).
UK firms mandated on the case include Addleshaw Goddard, which acted for the debtors on English employment litigation, and Linklaters, which advised on matters relating to regulatory filings and antitrust law in the EU and Belgium, as well as related corporate issues.
The line-up of firms advising on the case also included Baker Botts, Covington & Burling, Cooley, Jones Day, K&L Gates and Morgan Lewis & Bockius.
The report excludes a clutch of advisers including Morrison & Foerster and Littler Mendelson, both of which submitted their fee applications after deadline. The fee examiner expects they will be heard at the start of July.
American Airlines emerged from bankruptcy after AMR merged with US Airways Group, with the deal completing last December.
Weil was one of the big winners on the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, racking up more than $400m (£260m) in fees in the years following the bank's collapse.
Last June, the role was cited as a potential contributing factor to the firm's decision to embark on a major round of layoffs. Executive partner Barry Wolf said the "balance of the firm… most notably as a result of Lehman" had previously helped to avoid the cuts.
"Once [Lehman] concluded it was always going to leave some sort of gap behind it," one senior restructuring partner at a US firm told Legal Week at the time. "These big cases always throw you out of shape; it hurts, but it's pain worth taking."
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