In a twist on a theme we’ve seen in a couple of prior bankruptcies, the creditors committee in the Capmark Financial Group case is taking aim at heavyweight lenders who loaned Capmark money just before its bankruptcy and the advisers who negotiated the loans — including Dewey & LeBoeuf. The creditors have asked the court to allow them to sue the key lenders, including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, claiming Capmark and Dewey won’t file the suit themselves, according to court papers filed Wednesday and Bloomberg.
A Dewey team led by partners Martin Bienenstock and Michael Kessler was providing Capmark general restructuring advice before the lender filed for Chapter 11 protection in October. About seven months prior to that filing, a group of lenders headed by Citi, Goldman and Dune Capital Management essentially exchanged $1.5 billion in unsecured debt for the same amount of secured debt, according to papers filed by the creditors committee. The committee, represented by Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel and Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman, claim in papers filed Wednesday that the transaction was a fraud designed to place Citi, Goldman and Dune at the top of the creditors list — first in line to be repaid — in the “inevitable” and “imminent” event that Capmark filed for bankruptcy.
