Ronit J. Berkovich

Ronit actively lectures on various topics relating to restructuring, including for organizations such as PLI, Bloomberg Law, the American Bar Association, the American Bankruptcy Institute, the Association of Insolvency & Restructuring Advisors, the New York City Bar Association, and Columbia Law School. She is the co-editor of the Weil Bankruptcy Blog and has written extensively on restructuring-related topics, including articles published in The Banking Law Journal, The American University Law Review, Real Estate Finance, and the Harvard Law School Bankruptcy Roundtable. Previously, she taught legal research and writing at Harvard Law School for two years and a seminar in economics at Harvard College.

Ronit has received several prestigious awards and recognitions for her work, including ranked Band 6 in New York by Chambers & Partners. Most recently, Ronit was named “Highly Regarded” for Restructuring and Insolvency in the U.S. by IFLR1000 (2021-2024) and was previously named a “Rising Star” by IFLR1000 (2019-2020). She was named a Leading Lawyer by Legal 500 (2024) and was previously recommended for restructuring by Legal 500 (2023). In addition, she was named among the 500 Leading Global Bankruptcy & Restructuring Lawyers by Lawdragon (2020, 2022-2024). In 2023, Ronit was the recipient of the Law360 Distinguished Legal Writing Award, a part of The Burton Awards for Legal Achievement, as co-author of the Bloomberg Law article: “Crypto Downturn Will Bring Legal, Regulatory Clarity.” In 2022, she was recognized as a “Northeast Trailblazer” by The American Lawyer, named among Notable Women in Law by Crain’s New York Business, and named among “Women in Business Law Guide” by Legal Media Group’s Expert Guides (2020-2022). She was awarded 2019 Dealmaker of the Year by The American Lawyer for her work as counsel to Takata in its global restructuring and $1.6 billion asset sale to Key Safety. She was named an “Outstanding Restructuring Lawyer” by Turnarounds & Workouts (2019) and was previously named as one of its Outstanding Young Restructuring Lawyers on multiple occasions. In 2018 Ronit was named an MVP for Bankruptcy by Law360. In 2015 she was named a “Rising Star” in Bankruptcy by Law360 and named among the “Top Women” for Creditor Debtor Rights in New York by Super Lawyers.

Ronit serves as co-Chair of Women@Weil in New York, on TOWER (Taskforce on Women’s Engagement and Retention), and on Weil’s Hiring Committee.  Ronit received a mentoring award from the firm in 2022. She is a member of the National Bankruptcy Conference, a non-profit, non-partisan, self-supporting, invitation-only organization of approximately sixty lawyers, law professors and bankruptcy judges who are leading scholars and practitioners in the field of bankruptcy law, the primary purpose of which is to advise Congress on the operation of bankruptcy and related laws and any proposed changes to those laws. She is also active in her community. Among other things, she is a member of its Lawyers Executive Committee and Bankruptcy and Reorganization Group of the UJA Federation of New York and co-chaired its Next Generation Bankruptcy and Reorganization Group for several years. In 2013 she received the James H. Fogelson Emerging Leadership Award from the UJA Federation of New York.      

Representative Experience

Debtor/Company-Side Experience:

• Avon Products, Inc.: representing holding company of the Avon International beauty brand, and its affiliated debtors, in connection with its chapter 11 cases, with approximately $1.3 billion in funded debt and significant potential mass tort liabilities
• DRF Logistics, LLC and DRF, LLC: representing DRF Logistics, LLC and DRF, LLC, Pitney Bowes’ global ecommerce segment, which provides domestic ecommerce parcel services, including delivery and returns, as well as cross-border logistics, in their chapter 11 cases
• Terraform Labs Pte. Ltd.: representing Terraform Labs, a Singapore-based software developer in its chapter 11 cases, involving billions of dollars in claims asserted by the SEC. Terraform Labs developed and supported (i) software used to create and run the Terra blockchain network, a unique decentralized digital ledger of peer-to-peer transactions, and (ii) a suite of tools, protocols, and applications that operate on the Terra blockchain
• Core Scientific, Inc.: represented Core Scientific, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency mining and hosting companies, in its successful chapter 11 cases involving approximately $1 billion in debt, which resulted in full recoveries to non-subordinated creditors and significant recoveries to equityholders
• Briggs & Stratton Corporation: represented Briggs & Stratton Corporation, the world’s largest small engine producer and a leading U.S. manufacturer of power generation, lawn and garden turf care, and job site products, in its successful chapter 11 case, involving over $500 million in funded debt, and sale to KPS
• EP Energy Corporation: represented EP Energy Corporation, a public oil and natural gas exploration and production company, in its chapter 11 case, involving approximately $4.9 billion in funded debt obligations
• Insys Therapeutics: represented Insys Therapeutics, Inc. and its six subsidiaries, a specialty pharmaceutical company, in their chapter 11 cases in the face of hundreds of lawsuits related to the opioid crisis (Insys was the first opioid manufacturer to file for chapter 11)
• CTI Foods: represented CTI Foods, Inc. and its affiliated debtors, a leading independent provider of custom food products for major chain restaurants in North America, in their prepackaged chapter 11 cases involving liabilities in excess of $655 million
• Catalina Marketing: represented Catalina Marketing Corporation, a digital media marketing company, in its prepackaged chapter 11 cases with liabilities in excess of $1.8 billion
• Confidential Representations: several confidential representations of Fortune 500 and other large companies in connection with corporate restructuring and ring-fencing liabilities
• Tweddle: represented Tweddle Group, a middle market, private equity-owned automotive supplier, in an out-of-court restructuring, pursuant to which the lenders received 100 percent equity ownership of Tweddle Group and an amended term loan facility in exchange for their existing claims
• Takata: represented Takata, a Japan-based automotive parts supplier subject to massive mass tort liabilities and other creditor claims, in its global restructuring, including the chapter 11 cases of its U.S. and Mexican entities and the ultimate $1.6 billion sale to Key Safety Systems
• GulfMark Offshore: represented GulfMark Offshore, a provider of offshore support vessels to oil and gas companies, in its prearranged chapter 11 restructuring of roughly $730 million in total debt
• Basic Energy: represented Basic Energy Services Inc., a Texas-based oilfield services company, in its prepackaged chapter 11 case to restructure $1.1 billion in debt
• Vantage Drilling: represented Vantage Drilling Company (a/k/a Offshore Drilling) in its prepackaged chapter 11 cases to restructure more than $2.5 billion in senior secured debt; as party of the strategy, the primary operating company, Offshore Drilling, filed a prepackaged chapter 11 case, while the Cayman Islands-incorporated public parent company filed a liquidation proceeding in the Cayman Islands
• FXCM: represented FXCM, a foreign currency dealer, in connection with a distress sale/bailout to Leucadia National Corp.
• NexTag: represented the price comparison website in the restructuring of its debt ($150 million to $200 million) through an out-of-court restructuring
• Foxwoods: represented Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, the owner of Foxwoods Resort Casino, in the successful out-of-court restructuring of $2.3 billion in debt obligations
• Dallas Stars: represented Dallas Stars LP, owner of the Dallas Stars National Hockey League Club, and certain subsidiaries, in their prepackaged chapter 11 cases
• Texas Rangers: represented Texas Rangers Baseball Partners, the owner and operator of the Texas Rangers Major League Baseball Club, in its prepackaged chapter 11 case, which was commenced to consummate a sale of substantially all assets, including the Texas Rangers MLB team, to Rangers Baseball Express, a group owned in part by baseball legend Nolan Ryan
• Centro: represented Centro, one of the largest real estate companies in Australia, in its restructuring, particularly in connection with the sale of its U.S.-based real estate portfolio to Blackstone
• General Motors: represented General Motors Corporation, the largest automobile manufacturer in the US and the second largest in the world, and its debtor affiliates, with assets of over $82 billion and liabilities of over $172 billion, in their historical chapter 11 cases, including a 363 sale to an entity owned by the U.S. government
• Bearing Point: represented BearingPoint, Inc., and its domestic subsidiaries, one of the world’s leading providers of management and technology consulting services, in their chapter 11 cases
• Lenox: represented Lenox, the iconic china, tabletop, and giftware manufacturer, in its chapter 11 cases
• Lehman Brothers: represented Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the fourth largest investment bank in the world, and its affiliated debtors, in filing the largest chapter 11 cases in history
• Vertis: represented Vertis Holdings Inc., a direct marketing and printing company, in its prepackaged chapter 11 case, through which it merged with an unaffiliated chapter 11 debtor, American Color Graphics, in the first ever “double prepack merger”
• Saint Vincent’s Catholic Medical Centers: represented hospital chain in its chapter 11 cases
• Independent Wireless One: represented IWO Holdings, Inc., and its affiliates, a provider of personal communication services (PCS), in its prepackaged chapter 11 cases
• Parmalat/Parmalat USA/Farmland Dairies: represented Parmalat, the Italian dairy company, in its worldwide restructuring, including subsidiaries Farmland Dairy and Parmalat USA in their chapter 11 cases
• Telewest: represented Telwest as foreign debtor in recognition proceedings under Section 304 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code (the predecessor to current 15) in support of the company’s restructuring under the law of Jersey (a self-governing dependency of the United Kingdom in the Channel Islands)
• WorldCom/MCI: represented WorldCom (formerly MCI) and its affiliates, then the second largest long distance telephone company in the U.S., in the largest chapter 11 cases of its time
• Velocita: represented Velocita Corp. and its affiliates, a telecommunications services company with approximately $827 million in debt, in their chapter 11 cases and the sale of substantially all of their assets to AT&T in a section 363 sale

Creditor/Acquiror/Other Experience:

• Diamond Sports Group/DIRECTV: representing DIRECTV as a major commercial counterparty and creditor in connection with the chapter 11 cases of Diamond Sports Group, a regional sports network affiliate of Sinclair Broadcasting Group. Diamond operates 19 individual regional sports networks that serve as the TV home to more than half of all MLB, NHL and NBA teams based in the United States
• Three Arrows Capital, Ltd./Digital Currency Group, Inc.: representation of Digital Currency Group, Inc. (parent of Genesis Capital) as the largest creditor in the BVI Liquidation Proceeding and chapter 15 case of Three Arrows Capital, Ltd. with approximately $3.5 billion in debt
• Hospitality Investors Trust/Hotel Management Company: representation of hotel management company in connection with chapter 11 case of Hospitality Investors Trust, a large hotel REIT
• Confidential Real Estate Lenders: representation of several real estate lenders in connection with workouts of loans with real estate companies
• NorthEast Gas Generation/Talen Energy: represented Talen Energy Marketing, LLC and Talen Energy Supply, LLC as second lien lenders and equity holders in the chapter 11 cases of NorthEast Gas Generation, an owner and operator of electricity generation plants
• Imerys Talc America/Johnson & Johnson: representation of 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 tens of thousands of personal injury lawsuits
• Westmoreland Coal/Talen Montana: represented Talen Montana, LLC as a major customer and contract counterparty of Westmoreland Coal in Westmoreland’s chapter 11 cases
• General Motors Korea/General Motors: represented General Motors as the largest creditor and equity holder of General Motors Korea, a joint venture with the state-owned Korean Development Bank, in connection with the restructuring and potential bankruptcy of General Motors Korea
• Energy Future Holdings/Brookfield: represented Brookfield Asset Management, a first lien lender, and the largest creditor, in the Energy Future Holdings/Texas Competitive Energy Holdings chapter 11 cases, one of the largest in history, including in successful litigation on an intercreditor dispute that resulted in a ruling in Brookfield’s favor in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals
• Dendreon/Valeant: represented Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. in its acquisition of the worldwide rights to the cancer treatment Provenge and certain other assets from Dendreon Corporation in a section 363 sale process under chapter 11
• AirFastTickets/HNA: represented 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
• DirectBuy: represented an ad hoc group of second lien bondholders in the out-of-court restructuring of DirectBuy Holdings Inc.
• Gores Group: represented the Gores Group, a private equity firm, in connection with numerous chapter 11 cases, including as a creditor and equity holder in National Envelope and as a section 363 bidder for Genmar
• Ener1/Goldman Sachs: represented Goldman Sachs, the largest creditor, in the chapter 11 cases of Ener1 Inc., a maker of lithium-ion and other batteries for electric cars
• BP Clothing/Guggenheim: represented Guggenheim as the largest creditor in the chapter 11 cases of BP Clothing (a/k/a Baby Phat), through which Guggenheim acquired the majority of the equity interests in the debtor through a debt to equity conversion
• ResCap/Syncora: represented Syncora, as creditor, in chapter 11 cases of ResCap
• Nortel: represented a major technology company as a bidder and member of the winning consortium of bidders in the purchase of a portfolio of patents for $5.4 billion through a section 363 sale in the chapter 11 cases of Nortel Networks
• Moonlight Basin/Lehman: represented Lehman Brothers, the largest creditor and the acquirer of Moonlight Basin, a Montana ski resort, in Moonlight’s chapter 11 cases
• Epic Air/AVIC: represented China Aviation Industry General Aircraft Co., Ltd (also known as AVIC General Aviation Co., Ltd.) as the successful bidder in a section 363 sale of the assets of Epic Air (Aircraft Investor Resources, LLC/In re Aircraft Completion Services, LLC), a company in the aviation industry
• Spheris/Nuance: represented Nuance in connection with a potential purchase, through a 363 sale, of substantially all of the assets of Spheris, a medical
• Hawaiian Telcom Communications/Lehman: represented 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
• TerreStar/Harbinger: represented Harbinger Capital Partners as an unsecured creditor in the chapter 11 cases of TerreStar Networks
• FiberMark: represented Harvey R. Miller, as examiner, in the chapter 11 cases of FiberMark