First up this week are Mark Stancil and his team at Willkie Farr & Gallagher, who scored a major win at the Third Circuit for bondholders in the bankruptcy of Hertz Corp. entitling them to nearly $270 million plus interest. The Third Circuit panel majority overruled a Delaware bankruptcy court and held that Hertz, which was solvent when it emerged from bankruptcy in 2021, had to pay bondholders their full contract rate of interest—between 5.50% and 7.125%—rather than the federal judgment rate—just .15% annually in this case. The Third Circuit also found that bondholders were due certain “make-whole” payments designed to compensate lenders for lost profits when a borrower pays them back ahead of schedule. Stancil argued the appeal for the bondholders. The bondholders’ team also included Willkie partners Donald Burke, John Brennan and associate John Goerlich and Delaware counsel Edmon Morton, Matthew Lunn and Joseph Mulvihill of Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor.

Marc Kasowitz, Dan Fetterman, Dan Saunders, Thomas Amburgy and Fria Kermani of Kasowitz Benson Torres secured a ruling from a federal judge in Phoenix this week upholding their $167.7 million win in a nine-day arbitration for electric truck maker Nikola Corp. against the company’s founder and former CEO Trevor Milton. Milton was convicted of securities fraud for making false and misleading statements about the company’s technology and products and sentenced to four years in prison last year. U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa this week affirmed an arbitration panel decision finding Milton 97% liable for a $125 million civil settlement the company reached with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and $46.5 million in legal and professional fees the company incurred.