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Offshore law firm Mourant Ozannes has been honoured at the prestigious 2014 American Lawyer Global Legal Awards, winning the Global Finance Deal of the Year Grand Prize for the role that the firm played in a major international restructuring and insolvency matter in 2013.
Originally recognised within the category of Global Finance Deal of the Year: Restructuring and Insolvency (Middle East), it was announced at the awards ceremony in New York on Monday night that the highest honour of Grand Prize had been awarded to the multi-disciplinary team of ten firms responsible for the restructuring of Arcapita Bank.
The matter attracted widespread global media attention when, in March 2012, requiring urgent protection from creditors, Arcapita Bank, a Bahraini corporation and leading Middle Eastern financial institution, simultaneously sought relief according to Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code as well as ancillary relief in the Cayman Islands through the appointment of provisional liquidators of Arcapita Investment Holdings Limited, a principal holding vehicle and a Cayman Islands subsidiary of Arcapita Bank. Mourant Ozannes' corporate and litigation teams advised Arcapita throughout this process and on its subsequent, complex restructuring which finally completed in June 2013.
Mourant Ozannes' Global Managing Partner Jonathan Rigby said: "We are delighted to have received this recognition for our part in such a complex and high profile international matter. The strength, expertise and reputation of our corporate and insolvency teams in the Cayman Islands meant that we were well placed to provide the multifaceted and technical advice required on such an exceptional deal."
James Wauchope, Partner in Mourant Ozannes' Cayman Islands Corporate practice said: "The corporate, finance and insolvency advice we were able to provide included a number of unique and noteworthy elements: a corporate restructuring in anticipation of a spin-off and listing of part of the group; three distinct Islamic compliant financings, one of which was the first ever Islamic compliant facility used in a US debtor-in-possession financing and another of which involved a sukuk issue; and finally, a major reorganisation of the Arcapita Group pursuant to the Plan of Reorganisation in the Chapter 11 proceedings, which also involved a sukuk issue."
The American Lawyer Global Legal Awards recognise teams that played a substantial role in the most distinguished cross-border work performed between 1 Jan 2013 and 14 April 2014 across a wide range of disciplines. For this, the second year of the awards, just four Grand Prizes were awarded from more than 270 nomination, which included over 170 transactions.
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