Cross-Border Avoidance Transactions

Allen Wilen is a Partner and serves as the National Director of the Financial Advisory Services Group. In this role, he leads a team of over 100 professionals dedicated to assisting the firm’s clients through the litigation and restructuring process. Allen provides forensic accounting, valuation and litigation support services specializing in the areas of distress, debt restructuring, and business disputes. In addition, he provides analysis of insolvent and troubled companies, provides advice in turnaround and crisis situations, counsels purchasers in the acquisition of assets within the bankruptcy arena, and provides expert advice to parties in civil matters. He has more than 20 years of financial and accounting experience in both national and regional public accounting firms.

Allen has been involved in numerous complex matters requiring expertise in forensic accounting and operational analysis. He has been qualified as an expert in numerous state and federal courts throughout the United States. He testified on matters including commercial damages, lost profits, fraudulent transfer and actual intent to defraud.

Allen has represented numerous distressed businesses in navigating their path through the complexity and confusion of the turnaround, sale and liquidation processes. Allen has been appointed in numerous fiduciary capacities by both federal and state courts as a Receiver, Special Fiscal Agent, Liquidating Trustee, Examiner, Provisional Director, and Chief Restructuring Officer. In addition, he often represents court appointed trustees, receivers, and examiners, and has been involved in a large number of high profile cases.

Allen has written articles and industry journals, including a number of sections in the Turnaround Management Association’s Body of Knowledge and a chapter on Financial Reporting in Bankruptcy for the American Bankruptcy Institute’s CRO Handbook. He has also been a speaker on several topics, including director and officer liability in non-profit entities, prepackaged chapter 11s, valuation, professional ethics and distressed healthcare-related entities.

Frank is counsel to AUDAXLAW. His practice is centred upon corporate advice, restructurings, debt recovery and dispute resolution. The corporate advisory work includes advising shareholders and directors on such matters as directors’ and officers’ liability and insurance, shareholder disputes, corporate financings, and risk management. His insolvency and restructuring experience includes acting for debtors seeking to restructure their business and operations, acting for insolvency professionals, and acting for creditors seeking recovery. Frank has extensive experience in debt recovery litigation, overturning fraudulent transactions, and shareholder disputes, as well as complex commercial matters. He is certified by the Law Society of Upper Canada as a specialist in bankruptcy and insolvency law.

Frank is a prolific writer and speaker. He has spoken at and chaired many programs on bankruptcy and insolvency, debt recovery and commercial litigation in Canada and the United States. He has written numerous articles on insolvency and debt recovery and has published a book on Canadian insolvency law through the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI).

Frank was called to the Ontario Bar in 1995. He is the current vice-Chair of the Insolvency Law Section of the Canadian Bar Association and a past Chair of the Insolvency Law Section of the Ontario Bar Association. Frank is the education director and newsletter editor for the International Committee of the American Bankruptcy Institute as well as a coordinating editor for its monthly Journal. He is also a member of the National Creditors Bar Association. Frank is fluent in English and Italian.

Timothy Graulich is a partner in Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP’s Insolvency and Restructuring Group in New York. He has played an instrumental role in numerous significant restructurings and bankruptcies, including in many of the most important cross-border cases in the last several years.

Mr. Graulich’s recent cross-border representations include representing Mongolian Mining Corp., Oro Negro, creditors of Grupo Infinity in its judicial recovery proceedings, the indenture trustee working at the instruction of majority lenders in connection with the exercise of remedies against the Schahin Group, Tonon Bioenergia S.A. and its subsidiaries in connection with judicial recovery proceedings in Brazil, the joint administrators of Lehman Brothers International (Europe) in connection with more than $10 billion of claims against Lehman Brothers Inc. in the largest SIPC case in history, and the Foreign Representatives of Elpida Memory, Inc. in the first-ever chapter 15 recognition of a Japanese reorganization case. His more notable domestic representations include representing the committee of second-lien and DIP lenders to RCS Holdings, the agent and majority lenders to C&J Energy Services, the agent in connection with the $1.5 billion exit loan to Lightsquared, Comcast Corp. in the involuntary bankruptcy of the Houston Regional Sports Network, and the largest creditor and commercial counterparty in connection with the litigation of the assumption of AAdvantage Program agreements. In addition to his regular insolvency matters, he plays a key role in the firm’s representation of certain global financial institutions in connection with their Dodd-Frank resolution planning.

Mr. Graulich has received a number of recent honors, including being named as one of Turnarounds & Workouts’ “Outstanding Restructuring Lawyers” and recognition in Chambers. He is a frequent author, lecturer and panelist on a broad range of bankruptcy topics, and is an INSOL Fellow, a member of the International Insolvency Institute, co-chair of ABI’s 2017 New York City Bankruptcy Conference, and co-chair of the IBA Insolvency Section’s Financial Institutions Insolvency Subcommittee.

Mr. Graulich received his B.A. summa cum laude in philosophy and political science from St. John’s University in 1991 and his J.D. and LL.M. in bankruptcy from St. John’s University School of Law, where he was a St. Thomas More Scholar and a member of the ABI Law Review.

Dr. Annerose Tashiro is head of Schultze & Braun GmbH’s Cross-Border Restructurings and Insolvencies Group in Achern, Germany, and advises in corporate recovery situations. She has acted domestically and internationally for many companies involved in debt restructuring and turnarounds, as well as for officeholders on several high-profile German insolvencies. She also assists financial and trade creditors in international insolvency proceedings and restructuring scenarios.

Dr. Tashiro’s recent reorganization mandates include advice for officeholders of a refinery group, a gas pipeline project company and renewable energy companies, and advice to an international banking consortium regarding a construction PPP, financial creditors in bank insolvencies, restructuring of a machinery company and investor consulting for supported MBO and for the purchase of a software company. She also has significant experience in representing officeholders in international fraud insolvency cases, and German banks frequently ask for her help when creating and pursuing collateral on foreign assets.

Dr. Tashiro served as the joint chief editor of turnaround magazine Eurofenix and is a board member of IWIRC, as well as a member of INSOL. She is also ABI’s Vice President-International Affairs. Dr. Tashiro is also a frequent speaker and lecturer on insolvency law.

She received her Ph.D. from the University of D?sseldorf and Keio University in Tokyo.