Debora Hoehne

Debora Hoehne is a partner in Goodwin’s Financial Restructuring Group. She represents debtors, creditors, lenders, equity interest holders, and acquirers of assets in all aspects of distressed and insolvency situations, both in and out of court. Her experience includes a broad range of transactional and litigation matters across a variety of industries, including airlines, financial services, insurance, retail, oil & gas services, manufacturing, real estate, telecommunications, power generation, and professional services. Debora has significant experience with state court insurance proceedings and restructuring work in the financial guaranty insurance arena.

Debora’s debtor/company-side experience includes the representation of:

• Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA and its affiliate, Arctic Aviation Assets DAC, in their US chapter 15 cases to obtain recognition of the restructuring of $5.9 billion of liabilities through Irish examinership and Norwegian reconstruction proceedings*
• Floatel International Ltd. and its subsidiaries, in their comprehensive, fully consensual balance sheet restructuring*
• Briggs & Stratton Corporation, the world's largest small engine producer and a leading US manufacturer of power generation, lawn and garden turf care, and job site products, in its chapter 11 case involving over $500 million in funded debt*
• Ditech Holding Corporation, one of the nation’s largest mortgage servicers, and certain of its affiliated debtors, in obtaining confirmation of their chapter 11 plan, including briefing novel issues related to the sale under the plan of reorganization*
• GulfMark Offshore, Inc., a provider of offshore support vessels to oil and gas companies, in its prearranged chapter 11 restructuring of roughly $730 million in total debt*
• Blockbuster LLC, in its chapter 11 cases, including its $407 million sale under section 363 to Dish Network*
• Advanta Corp., a business credit card lender, in its chapter 11 restructuring, including the successful negotiation of a settlement of tax issues with the FDIC that facilitated significant recoveries for Advanta’s unsecured creditors*
• LandSource Communities Development LLC, a land development company, in its chapter 11 restructuring, with $1.24 billion of debt. The reorganized Company emerged from bankruptcy as Newhall Land Development, LLC*
• Pyramid Management Group, in the out-of-court restructuring of a $550 million loan for the Palisades Center in West Nyack, New York*
• A portfolio company of a private equity firm, in its out-of-court restructuring*
• Several confidential representations of Fortune 500 and other large companies, in connection with corporate restructuring and ring-fencing liabilities*

Debora’s creditor/acquiror/lender/other experience includes the representation of:

• American International Group, Inc., in connection with the chapter 11 case of its subsidiary, AIG Financial Products Corp.*
• Term Loan Agent, DIP Term Loan Agent, and Term Loan Lenders, in the chapter 11 cases of Bumble Bee Parent, Inc., and its affiliated debtors, a major North American packaged foods company, including as back-up credit bidder in the company’s section 363 sale process*
• Johnson & Johnson, as a creditor in the mass tort chapter 11 cases of Imerys Talc America, Inc., which filed for chapter 11 as a result of thousands of personal injury lawsuits*
• Culligan International Company, a portfolio company of Advent International, in its acquisition of OASIS Corporation from the Zohar Funds*
• Ambac Assurance UK Limited, as financial guarantor in the Irish Scheme and chapter 15 case of Ballantyne Re plc, an Irish SPV that holds numerous contractual obligations/benefits related to reinsurance of life insurance policies, in its efforts to retire approximately $1.92 billion in outstanding notes. Finalist for IFLR Restructuring Transaction of the Year 2020*
• Ambac Assurance Corporation, in the state court rehabilitation of its Segregated Account*
• National Public Finance Guarantee Corporation, in connection with the Title III case of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority*
• AK Steel, in the negotiation of its supply contract and equity investment in the chapter 11 case of Magnetation*
• GECC, in connection with the unwinding of a prepetition receivables facility in the chapter 11 cases of Alpha Natural Resources*
• Health Republic Insurance of New York, one of 23 co-ops across the US that began with the Affordable Care Act, in receivership proceedings following its abrupt shut down at the end of 2015*
• Superintendent of Financial Services of the State of New York, as Rehabilitator of FGIC in the first rehabilitation proceeding involving a financial guaranty insurance company in New York (and the second such proceeding in the United States at the time)*
• Financial Guaranty Insurance Company (FGIC), as a creditor in the chapter 9 case of the City of Detroit, including defending against the City’s efforts to invalidate over $1.45 billion of pension debt and objecting to confirmation of the City’s plan of adjustment*
• Bayside Capital and PennantPark Investment Corp., as secured lenders and equity holders in the chapter 11 cases of DirectBuy Inc. and its affiliates, including in connection with the stalking horse purchase agreement for the section 363 sale of the company*
• Gores Group, as a creditor and equity holder in National Envelope’s chapter 11 cases*
• J.C. Flowers & Co. LLC, as secured lender and equity holder in the chapter 11 and chapter 7 cases of Affirmative Insurance Holdings, Inc. and its affiliates*
• HNA, a Chinese aviation company, in connection with the successful purchase in a 363 sale of substantially all of the assets of AirFastTickets, a proprietary airline ticketing platform*
• The New York Racing Association, the non-profit owner and operator of New York’s premier thoroughbred racetracks, Belmont, Saratoga, and Aqueduct, in the chapter 9 case of the New York City Off-Track Betting Corporation*
• Lehman Commercial Paper, Inc. (LCPI), as administrative agent and collateral agent in a $575 million senior secured term facility, in the chapter 11 cases of Hawaiian Telcom Communications, Inc. and its affiliates, the then-leading provider of telecommunication services in Hawaii*
• General Insurance Company of America, in the chapter 11 cases of Thorpe Insulation Company*

*Denotes experience prior to joining Goodwin

Debora is a member of the American Bankruptcy Institute, New York City Bar Association, and the Turnaround Management Association. She also serves as a member of Clara’s Council of the American Red Cross, Greater New York Region.

Prior to joining Goodwin, Debora was counsel in the Restructuring Department of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP.

Debora was awarded the Sanctuary for Families Above and Beyond Pro Bono Achievement Award for her trial court and appellate advocacy on behalf of a domestic violence victim.

Articles:

• Uptier Transactions and Open Market Purchase Provisions, Reuters (2023)
• Exit Bankers, Enter Lawyers in Credit Suisse Saga, Bloomberg Newsletter, March 2023
• Clearing a Runway to Litigating Claims: The Principle of Comity and Pre-Litigation Discovery in Chapter 15 Cases, December 2021
• Getting off on the Right Foot: Bankruptcy Court Rejects US Trustee’s Unconventional Position That Management Consultant Must be Retained Under Section 327 of the Bankruptcy Code, 14 Pratt’s J. Bankr. Law 404, November/December 2018
• Seventh Circuit Discusses Inquiry Notice and Equitable Subordination of Non-Insider, The Real Estate Finance Journal, Winter/Spring 2016
• Judge Tosses Bad Faith Involuntary Filing Primarily Seeking Management Change, June 2016
• Securitized Loan Payments Safe Harbored Under Section 546(e), May 2015
• Safe No More? Court Vacates Opinion Safe Harboring REMIC Payments, September 2015
• Court Tells Junior Investors in CDO “You Gotta Have Faith” – Good Faith and Fair Dealing, That Is, October 2015
• Does Silence Mean Consent? Some Courts Have Found That It Does Not (at Least for Purposes of Sales Under Section 363(f)), Pratt’s J. Bankr. Law, November/December 2015
• Trustees Beware! Securitization Trustees May Be Liable for Fraudulent Transfers, November 2010
• Has Bankruptcy Remoteness Become, Well, More Remote in the Seventh Circuit?, December 2010, cited in Paloian v. LaSalle Bank Nat’l Ass’n (In re Doctors Hosp. of Hyde Park Inc., 507 B.R. 558 (Bankr. N.D. Ill. 2013)
• Assessing the Compatibility of Title IX and § 1983: A Post-Abrams Framework for Preemption, 74 Fordham L. Rev. 1389, 2006
• Setting Chapter 11 Cramdown Interest Rates: Is Prime Really the Prime Starting Point? with Ronit J. Berkovich, ABI Secured Credit Newsletter, September 2013

Panels:

• Panelist, Cross Border Restructuring Through Ireland, Dublin International Disputes Week Conference, Ireland, June 2022
• Panelist, The Prepackaged Rehabilitation, International Association of Insurance Receivers Technical Development Series Conference, University of Connecticut Law School, October 2018