Participants in today’s commercial real estate market face the combined challenges of decreased liquidity, stricter underwriting standards and compressed real estate valuations. Bryan Cave’s Real Estate Bankruptcy, Workout and Litigation Team helps lenders, special servicers of securitized commercial mortgages, borrowers and other market participants find solutions and achieve their goals in this increasingly complex environment.

Our interdisciplinary team of lawyers draws from our leading Real Estate & Banking; Bankruptcy, Restructuring & Creditor Rights; and Commercial Litigation Client Service Groups. The team has extensive geographic reach, with lawyers resident in our New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Irvine offices, as well as our offices in Hamburg, London and Milan.

Bryan Cave has experience involving all commercial real estate classes, including hotels, multifamily housing (both single-owner and cooperative), office, retail, health care and industrial properties. We represent our clients in connection with:

• Commercial real estate Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases and out-of-court workouts
• Bankruptcy sales and other distressed real estate transactions
• Complex intercreditor issues, including:
  • multi-tier capital structures
  • participations
• Bankruptcy litigation, including:
  • litigation of cash collateral issues
  • relief from automatic stay
  • dismissal for bad faith filing
  • plan-related litigation, such as litigation of exclusivity, competing plans and confirmation disputes
  • avoidance actions
• Other real estate litigation, including:
  • judicial foreclosures
  • guarantee litigation
  • fraud and negligent misrepresentation litigation
  • lien priority litigation
  • litigation involving contract interpretation
  • fraudulent conveyance litigation
  • title insurance litigation
• Real estate finance, including debt, mezzanine and equity financing

Bryan Cave advises clients in all aspects of real estate ownership, use, investment and financing, and has significant experience with the issues that can arise in connection with securitized loans. In the last few years, our lawyers advised on many of the largest office building sales and acquisitions in the United States, along with a number of other significant real estate transactions. Our intimate knowledge of the real estate market enables us to address the many complex issues that come into play in distressed real estate representations. For example, our in-depth experience with real estate financing allows our lawyers to quickly and efficiently sort through the intercreditor issues that often arise in real estate workouts.

The team also works closely with our environmental, health care, tax, land use and corporate lawyers, and can draw on additional experience, as needed, from Bryan Cave’s network of lawyers and professionals throughout the world.

Our litigators and transactional lawyers work together with our clients to craft the best approach to resolving troubled real estate investments. The team strives for consensual resolution whenever possible.

Noteworthy matters include the representation of:

• Special servicers in connection with the Chapter 11 cases of a national hotel company and its subsidiaries
• Special servicer in connection with the out of court restructuring of a $200 million loan secured by multiple hotels in multiple jurisdictions
• Special servicer in connection with the out of court restructuring of a large, multifamily loan secured by 12 properties located in five states
• Special servicer in connection with the Chapter 11 case of a multifamily cooperative corporation
• Special servicer in connection with a large “tenant-in-common” workout
• Special servicer in connection with an out of court hotel loan workout and loan sale to mezzanine lender
• Buyer in the sale of the largest piece of undeveloped real estate in Maricopa County, Ariz.
• Home builder in the workout of a large residential development
• Lender in the successful defense of a RICO jury trial based upon allegations of fraud and extortion in connection with the restructuring of a construction loan
• Banks as secured lenders on numerous residential, commercial and resort development restructurings
• German entrepreneur and an affiliated group of real estate development companies in connection with restructuring
• Taiwanese bank in connection with its defaulting real estate clients in Germany
• German client in connection with the restructuring and recapitalization of a diverse €30 million real estate portfolio threatened by bankruptcy
• Client in connection with the restructuring of a €50 million portfolio of hotel/leisure and residential real estate in East Germany