What are some of your proudest achievements from the past year? PG&E’s emergence from bankruptcy, and the enormous success that represented for Akin Gump’s clients is, without a doubt, the proudest achievement of the Akin Gump team from the past year. Akin Gump’s innovative strategy in securing bankruptcy court authority to propose a competing plan of reorganization for PG&E, with $30 billion in committed financing from Akin Gump’s clients, was unprecedented. That victory ultimately paved the way to a global settlement in the case, bringing a successful conclusion to one of the largest and most complex Chapter 11 proceedings in history. It is incredibly gratifying to see our clients benefit from a complex strategy that we successfully pursued together, against very long odds.

What, if any, obstacles stood in the way of your innovation, and how did you overcome them? The impediments to our strategy were financial, legal and political. On the financial side, we knew that any alternative plan construct would only have traction if it had truly committed financing. Our client group was ultimately prepared to commit an astounding $30 billion in financing, without which our construct would have gone nowhere. With the financing in place, we were still faced with the substantial hurdle of the debtor having the exclusive right to propose a plan, and very long odds to overcome that obstacle. Finally, we recognized that to maximize our likelihood of success we needed the support of the constituency that was the very reason PG&E was in Chapter 11—the fire victims. We also needed to ensure that the Governor’s Office did not oppose a noteholder-sponsored Plan. In short, we needed a holistic solution that “checked every box” in order to overcome the significant legal impediments.

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